Kew, which are recently sown, from our valued friend Mr. 
Thwaites, of the Botanic Garden in Ceylon. These seeds were 
accompanied by a coloured drawing of the plant, which enables 
us to give the representation of a plant of some interest in the 
Materia Medica,—the same kind of interest I mean as is felt 
in the detection of the adulteration of Tea, Coffee, Tobacco, etc. ; 
for there has been of late a very extensive importation of what 
we here term “ false Calumba-root,” instead of the true Calumba- 
root, Jateorrhiza palmata, Miers (Flora of the Niger Expedition), 
Cocculus palmatus, De Cand. (and of this work, Tab. 2970, 2971). 
Daniel Hanbury, Esq., of Plough-court, London, in a recent 
volume of the Pharmaceutical Journal, gave a history of this 
fraud on the public; and immediately opened a correspondence 
with Mr. Thwaites on the subject of the plant in question. 
The Coscinium was scarcely known to botanists but by the 
brief description of the curious ‘seed (curious as to internal 
structure, published by Gertner, 1. c.), and the still imperfect de- 
scription of the plant by Mr. Colebrooke in the ‘ Linnean Trans- 
actions,’ and Dr. Roxburgh in his ‘ Flora Indica,’ from specimens 
and information communicated to those Indian botanists from 
Ceylon by General Macdowall. A notion had prevailed, derived 
from the name of the Calumba or Columbo plant or root, that it was 
derived from Columbo in Ceylon, and a native of that island. At 
length, as shown under our Tab. 2970, 2971, it was ascertained 
that the true plant was a native of Mozambique, where it is known 
by the name of Kalwmb, or Kalumba. General Macdowall then 
sent our present plant to his scientific correspondents in order to 
ascertain whether this, much celebrated in the Cinghalese Phar- 
macopeela, was not the ¢rve Calumba-root, and for that purpose 
consigned “ a pretty large bit of the root,” sawed from the centre 
of a knot, to Dr. Roxburgh, that he might make experiments 
with it. Dr. Roxburgh, in a note, Fl. Indica, p- 811, at once 
sets the question at rest: “This is certainly not the Calumba- 
root ot our Materia Medica.” Nevertheless there have been 
large importations and ready purchasers for the Ceylon drug 
into England, the real properties or virtues of which (belonging 
though the plants do to the same Natural Family) are, to say the 
least, very problematical. 
{It now only remains for us to give Mr. Thwaites’s remarks 
and descriptions in his own words. Ep. 
“This species is very abundant near the sea-coast in Ceylon, and 
occurs also in the Central Province. 'The specimens from which the 
accompanying figure was taken were procured about twelve miles 
from Kandy. The Cinghalese value this plant very highly, using 
a decoction of the knotty parts of the stems (not the root*) as a 
* In the ‘ Flora Indica’ it is implied that the roots (not the stem) are em- 
ployed, as is the ease with the true Calumba-root. 
