96 BOTAJ^Y OF TEE Y.OYAGE OF H.M.S. HERALD. 
directions j and, after an exertion of three days, lie succeeded in obtaining about tliii'ty ripe fruits, and 
perfect leaves and flowers of the tree. Some of the seeds were sown in a "Wardian case, and, together with 
the specimens for the herbarium, transmitted to the Koyal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where the former soon 
became young plants, and whence they were distributed amongst various botanical and horticultural 
establishments; while the latter were briefly described by Dr. Planchon, in his dissertation on Shnarubacete 
(Hooker's ' Loudon Journal of Botany,' vol. vi. p. 566), under the name of Simaba Cedron. Attempts 
have been made to wrest from Mr. William Purdie the honour of having been the actual discoverer of the 
Cedron, and to confer it upon Dr. Luigi Eotellini. Such attempts are not likely to succeed. -It is true 
.that Dr. Eotellini, in a paper entitled ' Observazioni terapeutiche sopra alcuni Prodotti Vegetali della 
Ts^uova Granada,' printed in the ' Annali IMedlco-Chirurgici del Dottor Telemaco Metaxo' (anno vii. vol. xii. 
p. 281), drew the attention of the scientific world to the Cedron; but the learned Doctor himself never saw 
the tree, referred it to Apocynece, and mixed up his account with various fables and inaccuracies, derived 
irom oral communications of the aborigines ; while Mr. Purdie not only inspected the tree in its native 
locality, and gave an intelligible account of its virtues and properties, but collected such specimens as enabled 
compcteut botanists to determine the systematic station of the plant. 
It had been supposed that the Cedron was to be found only on the banks of the Magdalena ; but about" 
the year 1845, a Panamian gentleman ascertained that it grew in Darien ; and in 1847, 48, and 49, I 
myself found it in various parts of Darien, Yeraguas, and Panama. The specimens transmitted by me, 
together with those previously sent by Mr. Purdie, enabled Sir William J. Hooker to publish, in December, 
1850, a fuU description of the plant, and to accompany it by an excellent figure, from the skilful pencil of 
Mr. AYilliam Fitch. To complete the histor}^ of the Cedron, it is necessary to add, that on the 7th of April, 
1851, at a meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, it was announced that M. Lccoy had succeeded In 
separating the active principle on which the tlierapeutic properties of the Cedron depend, and that he had 
called it '' cedriner Thus, it took exactly 150 years, after the Cedron was first brought into notice, before 
a satisfactory account of the tree and its properties was obtained. 
The Cedron seems to be confined to the republic of ^"ew Granada, ranging from about the 5th to the 
10th degree of north latitude, and from 75° to 80° of west longitude. It is generally met with on the out- 
skirts of woods, on the banks of rivers, and on the sea-shore, but it is never found under other 
trees ; and although it occasionally forms small groves, yet it never constitutes extensive woods by itself, 
and must always be considered as a rare plant. The tree attains a height of about fifteen feet ; the stem, 
when about twelve feet high, produces a terminal panicle, which prevents it from prolonging itself; but, 
instead, side branches appear, which also. In their turn, send forth terminal flowers and side branches. The 
effect of this mode of growth is, that the tree looks as if cut, something like Salix capitata, or perhaps more 
like a fuU-grown Cycas circinalis, and may therefore be called a " magnified umbella." In diameter the 
stem seldom exceeds six inches. The pinnated leaves are glabrous, from two to three feet long, and have 
generally more than twenty leaflets. The panicle (not raceme) is very often from three to three and a half 
feet long, and bears flowers about an inch in diameter, the corollas of which are externally covered "with a 
brownish hair; internaUy they are'glabrous, and of a greenish colour. The stamens are ten in number, and 
the ovaries five ; but In most cases only one of the latter is developed into a mature fruit, the rest being 
usually abortive. The fruit, about the size of a swan's egg, has the appearance of an unripe peach, being 
covered with a short hair. Each of these fruits (drupes) contains one seed (the Cedron of commerce), 
easily separated into two large cotyledons, which look very much blanched almonds, but are krger and 
plano-convex. - ' ' .' 
Every part of the plant, but especially the seed, is, owing.to the presence of cedrine, intensely bitter. 
On account of this principle, it is extensively, and -^nth considerable success, used in cases of intermittent 
fever, by the physicians of Xcw Granada, a country lu wHch forests of Quina-trees abound. But the chief 
reputation of the Cedron rests upon its being considered "an efficacious antidote for the bites of snakes 
