200 BOTANY OF THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. HERALD. 
Journ- of Bot. and Kcw Misc. vol. i- p. 204 ! — Seem. Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald, 
vol. ii. p- 222! — Elejjhanfusia macrocarpa^ Willd. Spec, vol- iv. p- 1156! — Nomina vernacul. 
"Marfil vegetal'' et "Anta." Banks of rivers of Southern Darien, forming extensive groves by 
itself. 
Those who deplore that the great geological convulsions which our planet had to undergo before the 
present order of things was established, deprived the New AVorld of its ivory-bearing animals, and only 
suiFered their remains to be preserved in the deposits ascribed to the drift period of our times, may 
derive some consolation from the fact that there still exists in the virgin forests of tropical America 
an ivory-bearing plant — the Phtjtelejylias macrocavjya^ liuiz et Pav., producing a substance so exactly re- 
sembling to the eye the ivory obtained from elephants as to be frequently passed ofF for such, and even 
employed by mechanics, as far as its size will allow, in place of tliat article. "Wlien the Vegetable Ivory 
first came to be imported into Europe for commercial purposes has not yet been accurately ascertained ; 
but there is reason to believe that it was shortly after thd Spanish Colonies — its native country — obtained 
their independence (about the year 1826), as the narrow-minded commeixial policy pursued by the Govern- 
ment of the Peninsula towards its dependencies proved an almost insurmoimtable obstacle to speculations 
in raw products, which, like the Vegetable Ivory, yielded but small pecuniary profits, and could therefore 
not be introduced into the market under a system the very opposite of that which, under the name of 
free-trade, has since caused such beneficial changes in commercial and international intercourse. Be that 
as it may, the "V'egetable Ivory is now largely imj^^orted, chiefly from the river Magdalcna, into Europe and 
the United States of America; but we are still uncertain to what amount, as we have no statistical in- 
formation, both M*Culloch's * Dictionary of Commerce ' and lire's ^ Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, 
etc./ being silent on that point. Judging however from the use that is made of the article, the amount 
must be considerable. I know, from the inquiries instituted by Pred. Scheer, that in some years no less 
than 150 tons of it were imported into Enghmd ; and that the ^* nuts " are shipped from the places where 
they grow in large quantities is evident from Purdie mentioning, iu one of his letters to Sir "W^. J. Hooker 
(' Botanical Magazine ' for 1847, Comp. p. 14) : — '* A few days ago (about the middle of Pebruary 1845) 
thirty tons of the * nuts' arrived from the Magdalena (at Santamarta), commissioned for (the United 
States of) America and Germany." The "nuts" may be purchased in the toy-shops of the British me- 
tropolis for a few pence each, but when bought in large quantities they are obtainable at a very much 
cheaper rate ; in August, 1854, one thousand nuts were sold in London for seven shillings and sixpence. 
Long before the attention of commercial men was directed to the Vegetable Ivory, the existence of the 
plant producing it was known to botanists. It was during the latter part of the last century that two 
Spaniards, Euiz and Pavon, gave, in their ' Systema Vcgetabilium Florae Peruvianae et Chilensis,' published 
at Madrid in 1798, a scientific name (PhyteJepTias macrocarpa^ li. et P.) to it, together with a brief descrip- 
tion and a notice of its Peruvian names, and its properties and uses. The generic name (from ^^vrov, a 
plant, and cXetfyas, an elephant) was certainly well chosen, and has ever since been retained in systematical 
works ; unfortimately, the diagnosis attached to it was very imperfect, and that is the reason why the plant 
has to this day remained without a fixed station in the Natural System, A short time after the pubHcation 
alluded to, Humboldt and Bonpland discovered the Phytele^phas macroearpa in New Granada, and collected 
some information concerning it, which however, useful as it proved in many respects, did not throw much 
light upon it in a systematic point of view. Nor did Gaudichaud's labours tend much to advance our know- 
ledge in that direction. That botanist did not see the plant growing wild, and his three plates of it, published 
in the * Partie Botanique, Voyage de la Bonite/ unaccompanied as they are by any explanatory description, 
are almost unintelligible, and moreover they show that he had extravagant notions respecting the species of 
which the genus FTiyteJe^lias is composed ; he fancying that it was a congregate of no less than ten species, 
all of whicli he seems to have thought sufiiciently characterized by the shape of the seeds, — a most variable 
organ in this instance. Purdie, acting upon instructions from the Eoyal Botanic Gardens at Kew, did a 
