ever, without flower or fruit). They were collected in 
1805 at the village of Bajorque, on the Magdalena 
River, New Grenada, in about Lat. 70° N., and were 
described by Kunth as Smilaz officinalis. The illustrious 
traveller says of it, that the root was at that time exported 
from Mompax and Cartagena to Jamaica and Cadiz. In 
1853 the late botanical collector De Warzewicz visited 
Bajorque (or rather its site, for the village had been 
washed away), and sent leaves and roots of Humboldt’s 
plant to Mr. Hanbury, with the information that it was 
no longer collected for exportation. Of these specimens 
Mr. Hanbury says that the root agrees with that of the 
Jamaica Sarsaparilla* of commerce. In 1853, and pre- 
viously in 1851, the same collector had sent roots, stem, 
leaves, and fruit of a Smilaz called Sarza pallida, or Sarson, 
from the Cordillera of Cheriqui in Costa Rica, which Mr. 
Hanbury found to agree, in so far as comparison was 
possible, with the Bajorque plant, and the root to be 
undistinguishable from the “‘ Jamaica Sarsaparilla” of the 
shops. In 1869 Mr. White, of Medillin, in New Grenada, 
sent to one of the authors of the Pharmacographia leaves 
and roots of a Sarsaparilla collected at Patia, which appa- 
rently belonged to the same species. More recently Mr. 
Hanbury obtained from the Government Gardens of Cas- 
tleton, in Jamaica, specimens, without flower or fruit, of 
the plant cultivated there, with a view to medicinal use, 
and of which he says that the leaves and square stem 
exactly agree with the Bajorque plant, but that the root is 
far more amylaceous than the so-called ‘‘ Jamaica Sarsa- 
parilla” of commerce. Lastly, a plant was received at 
Kew from Mr. B. 8. Williams, of Holloway, with the, 
garden name of Smilax macrophylla variegata, which Mr. 
Hanbury, judging from the stem and leaf, believed to be 
the 8. officinalis of Humboldt. He mentions it as such in 
the first edition of the Pharmacographia, in a note to p. 643 
(Ed. 2, p. 707), where he says that the root agrees in appear- 
ance and structure with ‘* Jamaica Sarsaparilla.’’ This is 
the plant figured as S. officinalis by Bentley and Trimen 
from Kew specimens, and which, having now flowered for 
* * It must be borne in mind that the term “ Jamaica Sarsaparilla ” does not 
_ imply that the drug so called comes from Jamaica, where no officinal Sarsa- 
parilla is indigenous, and where its cultivation is limited, and of comparatively 
modern date. 
