CINCHONA. 



838. C. cordifolia Mutis MSS. Humb. Berl. mag. d. naturf. 

 i. 117. S. and C. iii. 1. 185. — Mountains of New Grenada at 

 an elevation of from 5000 to 8000 feet above the sea. Humb. 



Branches quadrangular, smooth. Leaves roundish, obtuse at both 

 ends, especially the base, or roundish-oblong and tapering to the base, 

 strongly veined, thin, quite smooth above, soft with down on the 

 under side, and hairy at the veins and axils when young, becoming 

 nearly smooth when old ; never pitted. Panicle contracted, thyrsoid, 

 leafy at the base, or formed of corymbose peduncles axillary to the 

 upper leaves; with the ramifications tomentose. Calyx tomentose, 

 with a large, smooth, campanulate, 5-toothed cup, the lobes of which 

 soon become quadrate and cuspidate; the tube, when it first begins to 

 swell after the flowers have dropped, sub-globose, but soon after 

 lengthening. Corolla tomentose, with a thick tube, the diameter of 

 which is equal to the length of the shaggy lobes. — It is inconceivable 

 how this most distinct species should have been confounded with 

 C. hirsuta or pubescens, the last of which is the only one it really ap- 

 proaches, as will be obvious upon comparing the descriptions. There 

 is no doubt of the specimens with leaves tapering to the base being the 

 same as those in which they are nearly cordate, as gradations from 

 one to the other form may be found upon the same branch, and they 

 do not otherwise differ. I have examined 4 specimens in Dr. Thom- 

 son's collection, and 7 in that of Mr. Lambert. Of Mr. Lambert's 

 specimens from Pavon, one is marked " Cinchona pubescens inedita;" 

 two others " Cinchona sp. nova inedita de Loxa Quito Peru No. 1° ; " 

 a fourth with a similar ticket, but glued down on the same paper with 

 " C. lanceolata ; " and a fifth " Cinchona sp. nova de Loxa, vulgo 

 Palo Blanco." But I have no confidence in these tickets belong- 

 ing to the specimens to which they are attached, and consequently the 

 information they convey is in my mind apocryphal. I judge that the 

 plant now described is what was intended by the name of C. cordifolia, 

 from the following circumstances : "In the first place the name applies 

 to no other; secondly, this species is so marked in Mr. Lambert's her- 

 barium by M. Bonpland, who would probably know the plant ; and 

 thirdly, it is the only one which the definition given by Humboldt 

 entirely suits. 



Humboldt and Bonpland say (PI. (sq. p. 66.), that Quina jaune is 

 produced by this species, but no reliance can be placed on this state- 

 ment, because it appears from Mr. Lambert's herbarium that Bonpland 

 confounded different things under the name of C. cordifolia, especially 

 C. ovata. In this he agrees with the authors of the Fl. Peruv. who 

 state (Quinol. suppl. 18.) that their C. ovata is the C. cordifolia of 

 Mutis, and produces the Quina amarilla of Santa Fe. But it ap- 

 pears from the same work (p. 56.) that Ruiz possessed only two bad 

 specimens of Mutis's plant, and he is by no means sure of its identity 

 with C. ovata; and the same careful and original writer, in his manu- 

 script history, speaks of the bark of C. ovata as quite distinct from the 

 Quina Amarilla of Santa Fe. If it were safe to conjecture anything in 

 such a subject as this, it might be supposed that the Quina Baya, or 

 Q. Amarilla of Santa Fe, which Ruiz in his MSS. describes as a sort 

 of bad quality, of which more than 600 arrobas were landed at Bar- 

 celona in 1804 and 1805, was the produce of C. cordifolia. 



839. C. pubescens Vahl. in act. hafn. i. 19. t. 2. Lambert's 

 419 ' e e 2 



