24 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1882. 



Paul and Mr. Cowuley, on the other part, under the 

 names of " homoqiiiniue " and " ultraquiuine."* 



Nevertheless the existence of ciuchonamine, the new 

 alkaloid studied and isolated by M. Arnaud in certain 

 cuprea barks, remains unquestioned. 



The discovery thus made of febrifuge alkaloids in 

 the barks of a group of plants outside the genus 

 Cinchona, as defined by me, renders it necessary to 

 reconsider the characters upon which the genus is 

 founrled and to estimate its affinities at their true 

 value. 



De Candolle constituted bis genus Remijia from Brazil- 

 ian plants which St. Hilaire, in his " Plantes 

 Usuelles des Brasiliens,' had referred to the genus 

 Cinchona, and which had previously been made known 

 by Vellozo under the name of Macrocnemum. These 

 plants are shrubs which grow on the dry and exposed 

 summits of the mountaius that extend from north to 

 south of the province of Minns, indicating the pre- 

 sence of iron in the soil, according to St. Hilaire. 



According to the same author they have bitter barks 

 which singularly resemble those of the Peruvian cin- 

 chonas, and bear without distmction the names of 

 Ouina de Scrra (mountiin cinchona) or Qulna de Remijio 

 (the name of the person who first pointed out to the 

 Brazilians their use as a substitute foi the officinal 

 cinchonas.) 



St. Hilaire, while acknowledging that, perhaps, the 

 " Quina de Serra " plants v^ere only varieties of one 

 species, yet referred them to three, called Cinchona, 

 Rcmij'iana, C ferruginea and C. Veltozii, and these 

 have been retained by De Candolle itnder the new 

 name Remijia ; but I believe, in fact, that they ought 

 to be considered as forms of one specific type, De 

 Candolle, adopting the idea of St. Hilaire, who had 

 called one of these species Cinchona Remijiana, in order 

 to preserve the memory of the surgeon Remijo, to whom 

 is due the use of these plants as febrifuges, gave to 

 his genus the name of Remijia. This genus is evid- 

 ently very near to Cinchona, and its affinity has been 

 rendered still more close by the discovery of the cin- 

 chona alkaloids in the CoUimbian species of Remijia ; 

 but it is clearly distinguished from Cinchona by its 

 axillary inflorescence, and its capsules dehiscing from 

 above downards. In the last character, as well as in 

 the analogy of the structure of their Ijarks, the species 

 of Remijia approach more nearly to the genus Cavar- 

 illa; but from this genus they differ in the prominent 

 and remarkable character of the axillary inflorescence, 

 and also the presence of alkaloids in their barks, 

 which have not hitherto been discovered in the genua 

 Cascarilla. 



The geuuB Remijia presents the characters suffici- 

 ently well definid and constant to keep it distinct 

 from the two genera most nearly allied to it, viz.. 

 Cinchona Cascarilla. 



By the chemical composition of their barks, the 

 " remijias" must now lake an important place in 

 commerce and in therapeutics by the side of the cin- 

 chonas, of which they are becoming rivals, which 

 confirms the foresight of P.emijo and St. Hilaire. 

 Henceforth the two groups of plants will be coupled 

 together, and as the name Cinchona, given by Liunteus 

 to^the tree of which the bark cured the Countess of 

 Chiuchon, will recall this fact, that of Remijia will 

 preserve an analogous one from being forgotten. 



Beside the generic characters which I have defined. 



» Mr. Triaua appears to have ovarlooked the fact that 

 Mr. T. G. WHiiffen also made known the discovery of a 

 new alkaloid, to which he gave the name " ultraquinine," 

 and which was probably the .same as that referred to by 

 the other observers. (See before, p. 497.) As regards the 

 suggestion that this alkaloid is reaUy a compound of 

 quinine and quinidine we are still without any evidence in 

 support of its probability or of the existence of such a 

 compound. — Ed. P, J. 



the original species of Remijia, as well as those sub- 

 sequently published, have, as De Candolle remarks, 

 "a peculiar stamp which distinguishes them at first 

 sight from the cinchonas, and which consists of a 

 shrubby habit, in the leaves being sometimes in whorls 

 of three, particularly the lower ones, in the branches 

 and inflorescence being covered with a reddish pubes- 

 cence, and in the quadrifid woody capsules." But 

 these distinctions, due to collateral circumstances, 

 diminish in other species, especially in the two Colum- 

 bian species herein noticed. Their glabrescent foliage, 

 and especially their coriaceous, bipartite and relatively 

 small capsules, give them a considerable resemblance 

 to several of the officinal cinchonas. It is more than 

 probable that it is to this similarity that the dis- 

 covery of cuprea cinchona, which has undoubtedly 

 been made by persona without scientific qualifications, 

 is due. Perhaps a botanist would have done as I / 

 myself did, when I discovered Remijia pedunculata, 

 and would have refused to admit this tree among 

 those whose barks yield alkaloids, beacuse it could 

 not be ranked among the true cinchonas, and does 

 not correspond in habit with those whose bark abounds 

 in alkaloids. 



From the above remarkable facts, there must follow 

 results of the greatest importance to science, circhona 

 cultivation, commerce and therapeutics. 



From a botanical point of view, several ideas con- 

 cerning cinchonas, which were considered to be suffici- 

 ently established, must be greatly modified. For 

 instance, it has been customary to consider that the 

 presence of alkaloids in cinchona as exclusively char- 

 acteristic of the plants of the genus as hitherto limited, 

 and there have been those who have gone so far as to 

 say that the chemical analysis might serve to control 

 botanical classification, since alkaloids have never been 

 discovered in the genus Cascarilla or in other genera 

 allied to cinchona. 



It is also admitted that the tress yielding febrifuge 

 alkaloids, especially, those of Columbia, as I have stated 

 in my ' Nonvelles Etudes,' grow in the elevated regions 

 of the Cordillera of the Andes, where the temperature 

 is mild with scarcely any culd, and prefer the western 

 slopes of the great eastern branch of the trifurcation of 

 the Andes, the other two branches being almost destit- 

 ute of them. 



Since the number of alkaloid-yielding cinchonas has 

 been augmented by the addition of some species of 

 Remijia these plants, regarded as a whole, offer peculiar- 

 ities worthy of remark, both as to their habitat and 

 their geographical distribution. 



The officinal "remijias" of Columbia, as at present 

 known, grow under conditions of elevation, soil, heat 

 and exposure almost the opposite to those which the 

 cinchonas require, and they grow in places only a lit- 

 tle above the level of the sea, in the basin of the 

 Magdalena river on one side and in the basin of the 

 rivers Meta, Rio N'gro, and Guaviare on the other, 

 without ever reaching the elevated summits of the 

 Cordilleras. 



For the cultivation of the species yielding febri- 

 fuge alkaloids, whether in their nativo country or 

 elsewhere, a new and much more extended and 

 varied field is now opened up, and enterprizes of this 

 kind will be more numerous and their success more 

 easy and certain. The officinal " remijias," being 

 more hardy and natives of the lower parts of the 

 mountains, loving warmth and not being affected by 

 drought, will lend themselves more easily to cultiv- 

 ation and more especially in those intertropical count- 

 ries where the cultivation of the cinchonas in the 

 old world will also be aft'ected in consequence. 



As to the commerce in bark it has already found 

 in the genus "remijia" new sources of enterprise in 

 the peculiar conditions and circumstances of its veget- 

 ation, which are, as already remarked, different from 



