GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMPORTANT PLANTS. 11 
sideration in the comprehensive works just mentioned. From 
a narrower, pharmaceutical standpoint, an illustrative represen- 
tation of the distribution of officinal plants throughout the 
world has been undertaken by inscribing them upon a plani- 
- ’ sphere.’ A survey of the respective plants is thus obtained, 
which, however, as may readily be conceived, has nothing to do 
with plant geography. The distribution or, more properly 
speaking, the selection of these plants can, at most, only in so 
far be considered as having taken place in a normal manner, as 
it goes hand in hand with the course of civilization. India, 
Persia, and the Mediterranean region, the primeval seats of 
civilization, have, therefore, the preponderating number of 
officinal plants to exhibit, Australia not a single one; the entire, 
enormous Arctic region perhaps only Polyporus officinalis and 
Laminaria, to which, if desired, Cetraria islandica might be 
added. A further objection to the graphic representation of the 
distribution of officinal plants may also be found in this, that 
the districts of production are mostly much more confined than 
the geographic area of the plants, because so many drugs, on 
account of their limited use, can play no considerable part in 
the wholesale trade. Cetraria islandica, for instance, is col- 
lected for the drug trade in the mountains of Central Europe 
and the Alps, and not in the far North. Finally, the distribu- 
tion of useful plants is also sua ora upon certain influences of 
cultivation. 
1 Barber: ‘‘The Pharmaceutical or Moadidubitanion! Map of the 
World,” London, 1868. The same map is offered also by Fristedt, 
‘*Pharmakognostik Charta 6fver jorden,” Upsala, 1870, as likewise in 
the appendix to his ‘‘ Lirobok i organisk Pharmacologi,” Upsala, 1873. 
The map projected by Schelenz, in Archiv der Pharm., Band 208 (1876), 
_ suffers from being on altogether too small a scale, although it considers. 
only the plants of the Pharmacopoea Germanica. This fault is avoided — 
by Oudemans in his ‘‘ Handleiding tot de Pharmacognosie,” Amster- 
dam, 1880, since he dedicates a special map to each of the five divisions CS 
of the earth. If it is desired to go still further, then the distribution of = = 
each individual plant must be brought upon a special map. This has, = 
for instance, already been accomplished by Lloyd for Hydrastis cana- 
densis in his “ Drugs and Medicines of North America,” Vol. I, Be. 3, 
P. 82; Bao ae the Pharm, Leica sar New Bec P- 287. oars 
