27 
perceived that he never resided in’ Mexico. The absence of 
M. Mutis in the mines north of Santa Fe had kept him far 
from the Cinchona forests of Mave, Gascas, and the Aseradero. 
Mutis, in a report to the viceroy Don Manuel Antonio Florez, 
alleges as a ground of the later discovery of the Cinchona, that 
up to 1772 he had directed all his botanical excursions out of 
the limits of the first 5 degrees of N. lat., which he held to be the 
exclusive country of the Cinchona in the northern hemisphere. 
This great naturalist did not at that time suspect, that soon after- 
wards the Cinchona tree would be found to exist even at the 
mouth of the Rio Opon, and as far as Santa Martha, conse- 
quently im the 10th degree of N. lat. : | 
Mautis had procured the first dried specimens of the yellow 
Cinchona of Loxa (C. cordifolia) from M. Santistevan, director 
of the Mint. According to these, the genus Cinchona was es- 
tablished in such manner as he communicated it to — Linnzeus. 
Tn the year 1772, when M. Matis, in company with his friend 
Don Pedro Ugarte, rode through the forest of Tena, not far from 
the mountainous declivity of Santa Fe, he discovered Cinchona 
trees. A year afterwards he also found them betwixt Honda 
and Guaduas; and presented to the viceroy Don Manuel de 
Guirior, who had just embarked on the Magdalen river, a flower- 
ing branch of Cinchona, as a newly-discovered valuable pro- 
duct of that country, which nature had also enriched with aro- 
matic Nutmegs (.Myristica Otoba_), with an excellent Cinnamon 
tree (Laurus cinnamomoides Mut.) with aromatic Puchery or 
Toduspuie ( Laurus* Putseri Mut.), with Almonds ¢ Caryocar 
amygdaliferum Mut.), with four kinds of Styrax, with the Bal- 
'* The Laurus Putseri of Matis isthe same as the Laurus Pueheri of Fl. Peruviana, vol. iv. 
t.352, ined, ‘The number of species of this genus figured in the fourth vol. ined. of the Flora 
Peruviana, amounts to thirty. he fruit of the Laurus Pucheri is frequently sold in the Lon— 
Yon shops under the name of Sassafras nuts. Caryocar amygdaliferum, Fl. Peruv, vol, ¥. ined. 
+. 470, Myrospermum balsamiferum, Fl. Perwv, 4, ined, t, 373, 
« 
