December i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



453 



THE CINCHONA CALISAYA (OR LEDGERIANA) 

 DISCUSSION. 



Mr. J. E. Howard, r. b. s., has favoured us with 

 a letter on this topic by last mail, in which he 

 deprecates our having introduced the personal ele- 

 ment into the discussion. What we did was to ex- 

 press our amazement that first Sir J. D. Hooker 

 should have been supposed capable of figuring a pseudo. 

 micrantha as a calisaya and then Dr. Trimen of 

 having committed the same mistake when figuring 

 and describins a Ledgeriana. We expressed the opinion 

 which we still hold, that neither botanist was capable 

 of an error which would have been so gro.«s and 

 discreditable. We insert a cnmmunication from Dr. 

 Trimen, and we quote as follows from Mr. Howard's 

 letter : — 



" When I say that this great authority (Hooker) has 

 never sr-en my plants nor been brought into the dis- 

 ciission at all (so far as my knowledge extends) you 

 will see that your remarks as to my asserting that 'such 

 men as Hooker and Trimen were capable of mistaking 

 a bastard grey bark for the very prince of the yellow 

 barks' are irrelevant.* I regret being compelled to 

 differ frnm Mr. Moens, but find that he is disposed 

 like a true man of science to discuss all these matters 

 in a friendly spirit. Dr. Trimen has more reason to 

 complain of me, as I have called in t|iiestion his 

 botanicd skill, and I do not wonder that he wishes 

 me tow-ithdraw frnm the field; but If all my independ- 

 ent critisim is to be crushed, what will become of the 

 success of the great enterprize in which we are all so 

 much interested ? 



" The opportunities afforded by the existence of Gov- 

 ernment Gardens in Ceylon and elsewhere for the assist- 

 ance of the planters are very great, but the amount 

 rendered has so far not been equal to expectation. 

 Take the question so much agitated of the hybridism 

 or otherwise of forms of cinchona, a most important 

 one because real hybrids are unstable. All this might 

 have been sfttled long ago by actual experiment. I 

 am reading just now the works nf Darwin and Miiller 

 on the fertilization of plants. What a vast amount 

 of information do I find there on the perferthid of seeds 

 of which your readers, whilst paving so largely for 

 seeds from Java, are probably wholly uninformed ? 



"I frcply admit that Dr. Trimen is rinbt that lam 

 no bolanig' ; but I am a botanical explo-er, as far as 

 my means and opportunities extend, and I continue to 

 study Iho development of my plants f-om the Yarrow 

 seeds and those from Bolivia, which I showed to Dr. 

 Trimen in their early stage. I remarked that they were as 

 like as six to half-adozen. This character on the whole 

 they still retain. But it is otherwise with a flourshing 

 plant from seed sent by Mr. Gammie from Darjetling to 

 Kew and thence to me. This far aivap surpasses in 

 power of growth and richness of" foliage all th<' others. 

 and I could easily uuderttand that it might form one 

 of the supcreminent Tata trees. It is not the under 

 surface, bu' the ioIwIj'. leaf which according to Mr. 

 Ledgpr turns rnjo or scarlet and gives a character of 

 resemblance to th" succirubra. Of co'irse, this exisits 

 in degree in other sppcies as in the C. oflicinalis, but no 

 one would fail to 8e<" the difference. 



■'Mr. Gammie's plant has jini! the bronzed character 

 of the tips which prevadps ill the others, I believe 

 it, nevertheless, to be the same essentially, and that, 

 probably, it is the form described by yonr Java cor- 

 respondent found under ledgeriana trees and combining 

 'igorous growth of the mcciruhrn with the pro- 



the 



this? and I believe it is all from the same parent trees 

 when rUjldhi fertilized. Darwiu obtained from the 6th 

 sefferti/ized (!) generation of Ipomoea ft sinc/k plant 

 which he named the hero which transmitted the 

 peculiar colonr of its flowers, as well as its increased 

 tallness and ahkjh degree of self-Jertility, to its ch.ldren, 

 grandchildren and great-grandchildren (see Darwin's 

 ' The Effects' Ac, p. 3<t9). This was a true Tata 

 ('father') plant in its way. 



" P.tS. — The distance from the Rio Beni, iu the neigh, 

 bourhood of which Ledger's seed was procured, to 

 Chimborazo, the centre of the Red bark district, is more 

 than 1,100 miles. See the map." 



duct of ledgeriana. How important than to propagate 



' Most (icciilwMy Mr. Howard rcpropiiterl Sir ,T. D, Hooker a.1 

 fgurinp a Mia-autha cali eayoides as t'alisaja josejjliiaaa,— Ed, 

 09 



DR. TRIMEN AND MR. HOWARD. 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeniya, 21st Nov. 1883. 



Sib, — I have addressed the subjoined ci'mmunic- 

 ation to the Editor of the Pliarmacenlical Journal 

 in reply to the letter of Mr. J. E. Howard on 

 " Cinchona Ledgeriana" published in that periodical. 



As sufficient time has now elapsed for my p.aper 

 to have reached its destination, I forward you a 

 copy for publication, should you think the subject 

 still possesses an interest for your readers. 



But, if my communication be too long or too 

 technical for the columns of a daily newspaper, it will 

 doubtless fiud a suitable place in the more perman- 

 ent pages of the Tropical Agriadturist. where 

 so much material bearing on the subject has been 

 already brought together. — I am, sir, yours faith- 

 fully, HENRY TRIMEN. 



THE BOTANY OF CINCHONA LEDGERIANA. 

 By Henet Teimen, m. b., p. t. s. 

 To the Editor of the Fharmaceiftical Jottrnal. 

 On the 3rd May, Mr. J. E. Howard read a paper o" 

 this subject before the Linnean Society, and within the 

 four months following he has found it necessary to pub- 

 hsh two additional papers (a) to endeavour to explain suc- 

 cessive changes iu his opinions. These changes have re- 

 sulted from " new light " obtained in instalments from 

 different sources and of varying brilliancy : — the specimens 

 and letters of Mr, T. N. Christie of ' Ceylon, the ™it 

 of Mr. Ledger to England, and the publication of Mr.Moeus' 

 " Kina Cultuur in Azie," Now at length the first paper 

 is published, (h) considerably shorn of wh.itever importance 

 it may have originally had, but this also has an "ad- 

 dendum," undated but apparently written in August, It may 

 be regretted by some Fellows of the Society that th'o 

 author did not refrain from printing views which he had 

 so modified since he expressed them. I presume at 

 all events that in endeavouring to ascertain what 

 really are Mr. Howard's present ideas on the nature 

 of C. Ledgeriana (no easy task), I shall be right 

 to take the statements and suggestions contained in the 

 paper latest in date, that, namely, which, under the rather 



sarcastic heading of a '• brief note." he contributed to your 

 columns. To assist the exegesis I shiitl,t 

 to avail myself of the earlier papers also. 



When in September l.'^^l I prepared the description of 

 C. Ledgeriana, Moens MS. which was printed in my 

 tlfurnal (<•) for November, the only puhli> lied botanical in- 

 formation was WeildelTs definition in Howard's *' Quino- 

 logy."(V) It does not appear whether "\\'eHdell .saw any 

 specimens, or whether he drew up his diagnosis merely 

 from Fitch's three fit e dramngs made from dried plants 

 from the Java plantations : lie allows that the characters 

 he gives are " not weighty ones," and iudeed these plates 

 would not be sufficient aloue for discriminating Ledger- 



(n) Philters' Gazette, Kith Aug., 1883, pp. 983-4, and 

 Fharinaeeutieal Journal, 1st Sept. 1883, pp. 178-180 



(/>) Joarn. Linn. Soc. xx, pp. 317-329. (Issued 24th Sept- 

 ember 1883.) 



(c)Joiini. Sot. xix, pp. .321-325. 



(d) Quill. Ind. Flant. p. 85. 



