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tHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1883. 



MR. HOWARD ON CINCHONA LEDGERIANA, 

 DR. TRIMEN AND BOTANICAL 

 ETIQUETTE. 

 In the paper contributed to the PharnmceiUkal Jour- 

 ««i, and which we reprint on page .SOS e^seg. Mr. Howard 

 has, as in all he has written about the cinchonas, em- 

 bodied a large fund of interesting and useful information. 

 It is, in truth, acknowledged universally that to no 

 man now living is the world more indebted for re- 

 liable information on the fever barks than to Mr. 

 John Eliot Howard. It is, therefore, the more to 

 be regretted by those who like ourselves revere Mr. 

 Howard, for the goodness of his personal character, 

 as well as tor his knowledge in a department of 

 science which he has made specially his own, that 

 he should have permitted feelings of annoyance at 

 an imagined slight to get the better of his better 

 nature so far as to lead him to bring against two 

 of the first botanists of this or of any age, Hooker 

 and Trimen, the charge of describing as Cinchona Led- 

 fjpriaua what was really a grey bark — what Mr. 

 Howard calls " micmnlha callsayoides." Mr. Howard 

 now admits he mmj ha\e been mistaken, and we suspect 

 there will be no difiereuce of opinion, even amongst his 

 best friends, that he was grievously mistaken. Dr. 

 Trimen may,e(pially with Mr. Moens, have committed an 

 error in separating the Lcdijcriana plant from other 

 caUsayas and erecting it into a new species. If the 

 supereminent qualities and botanical peculiarities of the 

 plant did not entitle it to this distinction, then, 

 doubtless, Dr. Trimen was guilty of a breach of 

 botanical etiquette, in superseilint; the name whicli 

 had previously been applieil to it, " Calisaya vay, 

 Ledgeriana, Howard." But apart from other 

 peculiarities, Mr. Howard's own bark-test seemed to 

 entitle the plant to a sej^arate position. While noue 

 of the ordinary yellow barks give more than from 

 3 to 6 per cent of quinine, more than double the 

 highest fijure has been obtained from the trees dis- 

 tiwguished by the name of the adventurous bark- 

 collector, who performed for the world the great 

 service of sending the seed.s of this, the best, as 

 yet, of the cinchonas from the westeru ,^vorld to he 

 cultivated in the eastern. But, equally w^ith Hooker, 

 Trimen is utterly incapable of confoundiug the very 

 liighest form of eiuehona with the very poorest, 

 mistaking the king of the yellow barks for a miser- 

 able jijjti-trH^^m. Mr. Howard claims for Mr. Ledger the 

 sole right to decide what is and what is not Ledgitriaua. 

 We scarcely tliink that Mr. Ledger would claim for 

 himself such unerring discrimination, because sonic 

 of the very best trees grown from Ledger's seed in 

 Java and in Ceylon, have no trace of the I'ed leaves 

 to which Mr. Ledger attaches so much importance. 

 But granted Mr. Ledger's judgment as infallible, 

 then his verdict in favour of the plants grown from 

 Yarrow seed by Mr. Howard, is decisive in support 

 of Dr. Trimen's typical Ledger, for it was grown 

 from a portion of the same seed which gave Yarrow 

 its fever plants. On the question whether Ur. 

 Trimen was right in erecting Ledgeriana into a distinct 

 species, describing and figuring it as such and so 

 depriving Mr. Howard of the credit, which lie evid- 

 ently highly prizes, of having his name for ever 

 associated witli it as a vaiiety of Calisaya, "Calisaya 

 — i-(u: Ledgeriana, Howaril"--we are scarcely com- 

 petent to decide. But we believe, —indeed it is cert- 

 ain — that .Mr. Moons, who has had far more and better 

 oportunities of observing the Ledgeiianas in every 

 Blage of their existence, even than Mr, Ledger 



himself, agrees with the separation. What we 

 contend for, in the interests of the simple truth, 

 is that Dr. Trimen ligured and descrilied an 

 undoubted and typical Ledgeriana, and that Mr. 

 Howard was as unti'ue to himself as to liotanical 

 science in asserting that such men as Hooker and 

 Trimen were capable of mistaking a liastard grey- 

 bark for the very prince of the yellow bark«. As 

 far as classification by appearance and quality of 

 bark is concerned — a most important matter com- 

 mercially and tliei'apcutically, and to some extent 

 scientitically (for the settlers in Australia with the 

 sanction of Ijotanists such as von Mueller, distinguish 

 the Eucalypti as stringy bark, iron bark, A'c.) — Mr. 

 Howard's judgment must ever be received with the 

 utmost respect. But cleai'ly, he must himself admit 

 that he is not infallible in purely botanical classific- . 

 atioii by the characteristics of flowers, fruits an<l 

 leaves. For he is now compelled to alter his verdict 

 of the hybrid origin of Calisaya Anglica, which, with 

 its granel red leaves, was hailed by Mr. Ledger's 

 Indian servant as " Tata ! tnta ! lata ! " : one of 

 the "fathers" of the very best cinchonas. Hybrid 

 or not, we suspect, Calisaya Amjlica is well worthy of 

 being fully tried by planters, and in view of our ex- 

 perience and observation in India and Ceylon, we must 

 take leave to hope more from hybrids, even the result 

 of crosses between succirubra and ledgeriana, than Mr. 

 Howard would allow us. The question is one to be 

 settled by experience of which we have had so much 

 already as to be able to decide, that hybi'ids between 

 succirubra and qfficiuaHs are likely to be more valu- 

 able, from robustness of habit and yield of alkaloids, 

 than either parent. It seems probable that still better 

 results will be obtained from the intermixture of 

 ledgeriana with the succirubras. and, perhaps, w-ith 

 the crown barks. Nor is it impossible that a hybrid 

 between ledgeriana and micrautha, might turn out 

 well. In any ease, Dr. Trimen figured and described 

 a true ledgeriana, of which we have many in Ceylon, 

 the barks of which yield to analysis, from 6 to 14 per 

 cent of pure quinine. Those giving the higher results 

 are, no doubt, the macho or male, and extra robust 

 forms of the tree, to which the Andean Indians at- 

 tach so mflch importance. It must be a grand sight 

 to see one of tlie glorious rojo trees, about which 

 Mr Ledger is so euthusiastie, towering in its n.ative 

 forests to a height of loO feet ! The age of sucli 

 trees must in some cases extend back to close on 

 the era of the Spanish conquest ! If only a man 

 like Mr. Owen, with all his experience of the cin- 

 chona iilanla as cultivated in the eastern world, could 

 visit the original haljitats of the plants on the 

 Andes, he might discover a cincliona even better 

 than the Ledger. In any case he would decide on the 

 correctness or otherwise of the statement, which seems 

 tons incredible, that tlie habitats of tlie succirubras and 

 the calisayas are more than l.UOU miles apart. One in- 

 ference we draw from what Mr How'ard says about the 

 researches of Weddell. We cannot doubt that this emin- 

 ent man discovered the trees we now call ledgeriana and 

 sent home specimens of their bark. But he was not 

 fortunate enough to meet with, or at any rate, to 

 gather, the seed. That was left to the adventurous 

 bark-collector. Ledger, through the agency of a native 

 assistant, who ultimately fell a victim to the vin- 

 dictive feelings of his countrymen. But Weddell, the 

 great explorer and desoriber of the yellow barks, 

 lived long enough to describe "Cinchona calisaya 

 var. ledgeriana [^Veddell pro parte How.]," and in 

 this description we cannot see any reference to the 

 bark ? Whenever the history of the cinchonas is written 

 ana Ijy wliomsoever, to Mr. Howard, in association with 

 Weddell must be assigned the credit of first describing 

 scientilically tlie chaiaeteristics of Calisaya Ledgeriana. 

 The mere ereotiou of the plant from a variety tp » 



