Tab. 7334. 



ERYTHROXYLON Coca. 



Native of South America. 



Nat. Ord. Linejs. — Tribe Erythkoxtle^e, 

 Genus Ekytheoxylon, Linn. ; {Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. vol. i. p. 244.) 



Erythuoxylon Coca; frutex ramulis gracilibus rufo-brunneis, foliis ellipticis 

 v. elliptico v. obovato-oblongis apiee rotundatis acutis retusisve saapissime 

 apiculatis membraQaceis uti'inque plica obacura notatis glaberrimis basi 

 in petiolum brevem angustatia, stipulis dimidiato-lanceolatis ramulis 

 appre^sis, floribna fascicnlatia breviter pedicellatis £ poll, diam., calycis 

 dentibas acutis, petalia stramineis intus appendice biloba lata instructis, 

 staminibus^petalis brevioribua, drupa lineari-oblonga. 



E. Coca, Lamk. Diet. vol. ii. p. 393. Cav. Diss. vol. viii. p. 402, t. 229. Ruiz. 

 SfZPuv. Fl. Peruv. Tab. ined. 398. DO. Prodr. vol. i. p. 575. Hook. 

 Comp. Bot. Mag. vol. i. p. 161, and vol. ii. p. 25, t. 21. Martins, in 

 Muench. Abhandl. vol. iii. p. 367, t. 6. Bentl. Sf Trimen, Medicin. PL 

 vol. i. t. 40 {var. novo-granatensiB. Kew Bulletin, 1889, p. 5. 



The literature, historical, commercial, botanical and 

 pharmaceutical, of the Coca plant, is very extensive, and 

 is fully given in an article in the Kew Bulletin cited 

 above, from which most of the following information is 

 culled. 



Erythroxylon Coca, Lamk., of which the figure here given 

 represents one of several more or less distinct cultivated 

 varieties, was first brought to notice in a posthumous work 

 printed in Seville in 1580, on the Medicinal substances of 

 the Spanish West Indies, by Nicholas Monardes, a Spaniard. 

 It was described and named botanically, first by La- 

 marck (Diet. vol. ii. p. 393) in 1786, from specimens col- 

 lected by Joseph Jussieu in Peru ; and was first figured 

 by Cavanilles (Diss. viii. t. 229) in 1790. This was fol- 

 lowed by a graphic account of the cultivation, value and 

 properties of the Coca plant by Poeppig in his Travels in 

 Chili and Peru, who gave details regarding the value of 

 the leaf used as a masticatory in maintaining and restoring 

 muscular strength, which I can well remember being re- 

 garded as highly coloured if not fabulous. Poeppig's 

 account was translated for Sir W. Hooker's " Companion 



Jaxuaky 1st, 1894. 



