the first to flower a species of Cinchona in this country, and that 

 species the most interesting of all in a scientific, commercial, and 

 historical point of view. The seeds, Mr. Howard informs us, he 

 procured from the mountains of Uritusinga itself, in Ecuador, 

 and he has also ascertained that this is the very " Quinquina" 

 plant that La Condamine described and attempted to bring to 

 Europe in 1737, but which he lost after cherishing the plants 

 through twelve hundred leagues of the voyage. 



It is with reluctance that we touch here upon the much-vexed 

 question of the nomenclature of this species, but we must adopt 

 some name, and as there are, according to authors, seven or 

 eight to choose from, we are compelled to vindicate our choice. 

 To begin : in this, as in so many other cases, when once the law of 

 priority is departed from without perfectly good cause, the door 

 is opened to endless future change, and consequent confusion. 

 A glance at the very limited synonymy quoted under this plant 

 shows, what never indeed has-been disputed, that the genus 

 Cinchona of Linnaeus, or, as he also spelt it, Cinhona (Gen. PI. 

 ed. 1767), was founded upon the one plant called " Quinquina" 

 by La Condamine, to which Linnaeus gave the specific name of 

 C. officinalis. This name, which appears to us in every way 

 unobjectionable, and which was adopted by Vahl and Lambert, 

 Willdenow, Lamarck, and Rcemer and Schultes, was changed 

 by Humboldt and Bonpland to C. Condaminca on the following 

 grounds, which we cannot consider sufficient, viz. " because many 

 species are truly officinal, and may be substituted the one for the 

 other." Weddell, who adopts the name Condaminea indeed, truly 

 says that Linnaeus afterwards (but not till the twelfth edition of 

 the « Systema Natures ') confounded another species, sent him 

 by Mutis, with the original ; that still other species were after- 

 wards included by various authors under the Linnsean name; 

 and that these reasons, together with the vagueness of the epithet 

 "officinalis," led Humboldt and Bonpland to abandon the Linnsean 

 name ; but the latter authors do not so express themselves : they 

 indeed mention the subsequent confusion, and they restrict their 

 reasons to the vagueness of the name. But the evil does not 

 stop here, for as Humboldt and Bonpland found several plants 

 confounded under Linnaeus's C. officinalis, so does Mr. Howard 

 find that these authors have included more than one under 

 their C. Condaminea, and he hence proposes the third name of 

 C. Uritusinga of Pavon's MSS. for the original " quinquina" of 

 La Condamine, abandoning altogether not only the Linnsean 

 name which, as no one disputes, was applied to this plant (and 

 tor many years to no other), but also the name of Condaminea of 

 Humboldt and Bonpland, and a fourth subsequent name, C. Acade- 

 mica ot Gmbourt. Now the fact of Linnaeus having, Ion* after 



