Flora Medica

CINCHONA.It is said by the authors of thepossibly be confounded with any other.Flora Peruviana to be commonly called Cascarillo or Quino bobo amarilloon account of the colour of the bark inside, which in flavour is verylike that of Quina de Calisaya. Ruiz says it is mixed in commerce withthat of C. hirsuta and C. nitida and he suspects it to be the real sourceof Calisayabark. In his manuscript history he says the bark of this isalso called Quina Anteada, Cascarilla Amarilla, and Case, boba de Mutia,and that it is one of the finest sorts. I presume this must be the sourceof the Yellow bark of the English druggists ; it is however uncertainwhether the Calisaya bark from La Paz, at the extreme southern limitof the Cinchona districts, inhabiting a different climate, has the sameorigin. M. Guibourt assures us (ii. 80.) that specimens purporting tobe those of trees yielding Calisaya, and brought from La Paz byM. Auguste Delondre, a French traveller in Upper Peru, belonged toC. micrantha, Condaminea, and 3 other species. But in the interior ofone of the quills he found a leaf, which appeared to him to belong toC. lanceolata, and this he conjectures to be really the species furnishingthe bark.835. C. ovalifolia Humboldt and Bonpl.pl.i. ceq. 65. t. 19.C. Humboldtiana R. and S. v. 13. DC.prodr.iv. 353. Loxa,Pavon. Forests in the province of Cuenca. Humb. and Bonpl.Branches smooth, apparently rather angular and furrowed. Leavesrather thin, exactly oval, scarcely acute at the point, tapering off intoan unusually short petiole, except in the case of those leaves whichare next the panicle, which are rounded at the base so as to acquirean ovate or even cordate form; not at all shining, smooth on theupper side, finely and impalpably downy on the under, especiallywhen young, with the veins, especially their axilsdistinctly hairy,but without a trace of pits; when old losing their down. Panicleterminal, naked, thyrsoid, small, downy, now and then with smallleaves subtending the lower branches. Calyx tomentose, with a shallow,5-toothed, downy limb, which does not alter its form after flowering,except by enlarging a little and hardening. Corolla tomentose,rather funnel-shaped, as small as in C. micrantha, with the tube 3 or 4times the length of the tube of the calyx ;the limb shaggy in the inside.Fruit oval, rather downy, very strongly ribbed when ripe. Of thisspecies 3 specimens in the Lambertian herbarium, and 2 in that of Dr.Thomson, agreeing pretty well with the figure in the Plantar aequinoctiales,sufficiently show that it is a species quite distinct from C. micrantha,from which its strongly ribbed fruit and the texture or form of theleaves certainly distinguish it. One of the specimens in Mr. Lambert'sherbarium is named by Pavon " C. purpureae affinis, sp. nov. ined. inregno Quitensi Loxa." It is stated in the Plantee cequinoctiales that thebark of this species is not much esteemed ; but that nevertheless a considerablequantity had been cut about the year 1782. It is reported inthe same work to be called Cascarilla peluda, or " velvet-leaved Quina ;"but I doubt whether this is not a mistake, because the leaves are solittle downy that an ordinary observer would call them smooth exceptwhen young. In the last collection of Cinchonas received from Ruizand Pavon's herbarium by Mr. Lambert, and from among which I havebeen favoured with a specimen, this is named, evidently by mistake,C. lanceolata.836. C. ovata Fl. peruv.ii. 52. t. 195. Cascarillo417 E E