506 safford: lignum nephriticum 



repeats Oliva's observations under the heading ''Taray de Mexi- 

 ico, " but in a footnote states that leno Jiefritico had been errone- 

 ously attributed to Varennea polystachya, or Eysenhardtia amor- 

 phoides H.B.K., and that its classification was not known. ^ 

 In a subsequent edition of this work the name palo dulce is 

 omitted, except as applied to the European hcorice, Fllickinger 

 and Hanbury, in their well known Pharmacographia (1879), 

 are silent about Hgnum nephriticum, although for years before 

 the publication of this work Hanbury had been seeking to identify 

 it.^ Dragendorf refers to it as a species of Guajacum.^ Otto 

 Stapf, however, guided by Ramirez and Alcocer's Sinonimia 

 vulgar y cientifica de las plantas Mexicanas (1902), referred a 

 piece of wood labeled "cuatl" in the Paris Exposition to Eysen- 

 hardtia amorphoides; but the wood was unaccompanied by 

 botanical material by which it might be identified with certainty.^ 

 He gives a history of. the wood known as lignum nephriticum in 

 early literature, and also quotes several Mexican authorities 

 but not Oliva, cited above. He accounts for the fact that the 

 flowers were described by Hernandez as yellow by the supposition 

 that there are varieties of Eysenhardtia yielding lignum nephriti- 

 cum which have yellow flowers, although, as a matter of fact, 

 no such forms occur in the localities cited by writers on the sub- 

 ject; and the only species in which the flowers are yellow are 

 low scrubby plants which never attain the size even of a small 

 tree or have a stem with a diameter approaching the dimensions 

 of the pieces of lignum nephriticum hitherto described. 



The last author to investigate the origin of lignum nephriticum 

 is Dr. Hans-Jacob MoUer, of Copenhagen, who after an exhaustive 

 study of the subject referred it to a Mexican tree belonging to the 



' Nueva Farm. Mex. 153. 1896. 



* See Oliver and Hanbury, in Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry, p. 391. 

 1871. "Lignum nephriticum. — This rare wood, noticed by some of the earliest 

 explorers of America, is a production of Mexico. To what tree is it to be re- 

 ferred? Its infusion is remarkable for having the blue tint seen in a solution of 

 quinine." 



" Das Lignum nephriticum deriilteren Mediciu wird wohl von einer Guajacum- 

 Art stammen." Dragend. Heilpfl. 345. 1898. 



i»See Stapf, Otto. Kew Bull. Misc. Information, 1909, pp. 293-305. 1909. 



