REPORT or M, tlUlLLEMTN'. 



plants to the garden of tlie Museum of Natural History at 

 Paris, I also detected the origin of many of our most precious 

 woods used in dyeing and cabinet-work, and an immense 

 quantity of substances employed as drugs. By thus collect- 

 ing the specimens of the woods, along with their foliage, 

 flowers, and fruit, 1 ascertained the botanical characters and 

 names of the trees which yield the Palissandre or Jacaranda, 

 the Gonzalo Aloez, the Vinhatico, and many others of such 

 importance that our siiips from Havre and Bourdeaux an- 

 nually bring home large cargoes of them. 



It is certainly remarkable, and I may add, little to the 

 credit of science, that these eminently useful trees are less 

 known than many others which are valueless to mankind, and 

 possessing scarcely any scientific interest. The origin of 

 certain liye-woods, at the head of which I may place the 

 famous Brazil-wood, was still a subject of dispute among 

 naturalists, and the solving of this question was no light 

 matter among merchants, many of whom had risked their 

 property in speculations on this wood, which in their igno- 

 rance on its real origin they believed to be afforded by 

 another tree of the same family, and very similar to the true 

 Brazil-ivood, the monopoly of which is claimed by the Brazi- 

 lian government. The information that I collected, both from 

 the growing trees and plants, and from the documents kindly 

 afforded by well-informed individuals, enabled me to establish 

 the origin of this and of different barks, possessingstrong medici- 

 nal virtues, of which I brought home specimens for the School 

 of Pharmacy. In my excursions I had often the opportunity of 

 observing tlie extraction of the true Balsam of Copaiba, trick- 

 ling from broad clefts made in the trunk of the Copaifera, a 

 very lofty tree, growing singly in the mountain forests near 

 Rio. I also gathered several pieces of Copal resin from the 

 stems and at the foot of tlie Hynuncea Coiirbaril. M. Riedel 

 pointed out to me a true species of Cinchona, growing on the 

 mountains of Tijuka, which may probably afford a Qidnine 

 Bark, equally febrifugal in its qualities as the Peruvian Cin- 

 chonas, if I may judge by the botanical analogy between these 



