18 MAGNOLIACE^. 



But although the straits of Magellan were several times visited 

 about this period, it is certain that no regular communication between 

 that remote region and Europe existed either then or subsequently; 

 and we may reasonably conclude that Winter's Bark became a drug of 

 greafc_ rarity, and known to but few persons. It thus happened that, 

 notwithstanding most obvious differences, the Canella alba of the West 

 Indies, and another bark of which we shall speak further on, having 

 been found to possess the pungency of Winter's Bark, were (owing to 

 the scarcity of the latter) substituted for it, until at length the peculiar 

 characters of the original drug came to be entirely forgotten. 



The tree was figured by Sloane in 1693, from a specimen (still 

 extant in the British Museum) brought from Magellan's Straits by 

 Handisyd, a ship's surgeon, who had experienced ii 



scurvy. 



Feuille'e,^ a French botanist, found the Winter's Bark-tree in Chili 

 09-11), and figured it as Boiguc cin^iamomifera. It was, however, 

 Forster," the botanist of Cook's second expedition round the world, who 

 first described the tree accurately, and named it Drimys Winteri. He 

 met with it in 1773 in Magellan's Straits, and on the eastern coasts of 

 Tierra del Fuego, where it grows abundantly, forming an evergreen 

 tree of 40 feet, while on the western shores it is but a shrub of 10 feet 

 high. Specimens have been collected in these and adjacent localities 

 by many subsequent botanists, amonof others by Dr. J. D. Hooker, who 



o 



elevation of 1000 feet. 



Ho 



om Magella 



h^mys 



brought into the market from other parts of South America, where 

 it is in very general use. Yet so little are drug dealers acquainted with 

 it, that its true name and origin have seldom been recoflfnized.* 



Description 



Winter 



from the Straits of Magellan, Chili, Peru, New Granada, and Mexico, 

 and find in each the same general characters. The bark is in quills or 

 channelled pieces, often crooked, twisted or bent backwards, general)}'^ 

 only a few inches in length. It is most extremely thick (^V 



h) 



bark a 



Q sometimes 



three times as much in external diameter. Young pieces have an ashy- 

 grey suberous coat beset with lichens. In older bark, the outer coat is 

 sometimes whitish and silvery, but more often of a dark rusty brown, 

 which is the colour of the internal substance, as well as of the surface 

 next the wood. The inner side of the bark is strongly characterized by 

 very rough striae, or, as seen under a lens, by small short and sharp 

 longitudinal ridges, with occasional fissures indicative of great con- 

 traction of the inner layer in drying. In a piece broken or cut trans- 

 versely, it is easy to perceive that the ridges in question are the ends of 

 rays of white liber which diverge towards the circumference in radiate 



^ Joum, des observations physique.% &c. * We liave seen it offered in a tlnig sale at 



iv. 1714. 10, pi. 6. one time as " Pepper Bark," at anotlier as 



2 Characterea Generum Planfarum, 1775. ''Cinchona" EvenMutis thought itaCm* 



42. chona, and called it '' KinJcbia tireiis" ! 



