Flora Medica

CINCHONA.838. C. cordifolia Mutis MSS. Humb. Berl. mag. d. naturf.i. 117. S. and C. iii. 1. 185. Mountains of New Grenada atan elevation of from 5000 to 8000 feet above the sea. Humb.Branches quadrangular, smooth. Leaves roundish, obtuse at bothends, especially the base, or roundish-oblong and tapering to the base,strongly veined, thin, quite smooth above, soft with down on theunder side, and hairy at the veins and axils when young, becomingnearly smooth when old ; never pitted. Panicle contracted, thyrsoid,leafy at the base, or formed of corymbose peduncles axillary to theupper leaves; with the ramifications tomentose. Calyx tomentose,with a large, smooth, campanulate, 5-toothed cup, the lobes of whichsoon become quadrate and cuspidate ;the tube, when it first begins toswell after the flowers have dropped, sub-globose, but soon afterlengthening. Corolla tomentose, with a thick tube, the diameter ofwhich is equal to the length of the shaggy lobes. It is inconceivablehow this most distinct species should have been confounded withC. hirsuta or pubescens, the last of which is the only one it really approaches,as will be obvious upon comparing the descriptions. Thereis no doubt of the specimens with leaves tapering to the base being thesame as those in which they are nearly cordate, as gradations fromone to the other form may be found upon the same branch, and theydo not otherwise differ. I have examined 4 specimens in Dr. Thomson'scollection, and 7 in that of Mr. Lambert. Of Mr. Lambert'sspecimens from Pavon, one is marked " Cinchona"pubescens inedita;two others " Cinchona sp. nova inedita de Loxa Quito Peru No." 1 ;a fourth with a similar ticket, but glued down on the same paper with" " C. lanceolata ; and a fifth" Cinchona sp. nova de Loxa, vulgoPalo Blanco" But I have no confidence in these tickets belongingto the specimens to which they are attached, and consequently theinformation they convey is in my mind apocryphal. I judge that theplant now described is what was intended by the name of C. cordifolia,from the following circumstances ": In the first place the name appliesto no other ; secondly, this species is so marked in Mr. Lambert's herbariumby M. Bonpland, who would probably know the plant ;andthirdly, it is the only one which the definition given by Humboldtentirely suits.Humboldt and Bonpland say (PL ceq. p. 66.), that Quina jaune isproduced by this species, but no reliance can be placed on this statement,because it appears from Mr. Lambert's herbarium that Bonplandconfounded different things under the name of C. cordifolia, especiallyC. ovata. In this he agrees with the authors of the Fl. Peruv. whostate (Quinol. suppl. 18.) that their C. ovata is the C. cordifolia ofMutis, and produces the Quina amarilla of Santa Fe. But it appearsfrom the same work (p. 56.) that Ruiz possessed only two badspecimens of Mutis's plant, and he is by no means sure of its identitywith C. ovata ; and the same careful and original writer, in his manuscripthistory, speaks of the bark of C. ovata as quite distinct from theQuina Amarilla of Santa Fe. If it were safe to conjecture anything insuch a subject as this, it might be supposed that the Quina Bat/a, orQ. Amarilla of Santa Fe, which Ruiz in his MSS. describes as a sortof bad quality, of which more than 600 arrobas were landed at Barcelonain ISO'-i and 1805, was the produce of C. cordifolia.839. C. pubescens Vahl. in act. i.hafn. 19. t. 2. Lambert's"419E E 2