lum novogranatense (as E. Coca var. novogranatense) by Morris 
at Kew, who stated that his new variety approached “very nearly 
(although not so coriaceous) as what are known in commerce as 
Truxillo leaves”. In 1900, H. H. Rusby, then Professor at the 
New York College of Pharmacy, described Trujillo coca as a 
new species, Erythroxylum truxillense. He asserted that this 
coca differed from both E. Coca of Lamarck and from E. Coca 
var. novogranatense of Morris (which Rusby erroneously wrote 
as “neo-granatense”). Neither Rusby nor his English-speaking 
contemporaries were aware that Hieronymus, working in Berlin, 
had made the correct combination Erythroxylum novograna- 
tense in 1895 in identifying the Colombian coca collections of F. 
C. Lehmann. 
In his rambling and confused paper of 1900, Rusby discussed 
several different kinds of coca, both wild and cultivated, which 
he had encountered both in his extensive travels in South Amer- 
ica and in the pharmaceutical trade. Rusby departed from 
acceptable taxonomic procedures, even then in common prac- 
tice, of describing plants clearly and concisely and of citing spe- 
cific collections as types or otherwise authentic specimens. He 
described his E. truxillense casually and in prose discourse. His 
brief description of the “Trujillo” or “small green leaf which we 
get directly from Peru” was given as follows: “It is mostly from 3 
xX 1-1/4 to 4 X 1-1/2 cm. It is obovate, with narrowed base, 
mostly acute or acutish at the apex and minutely apiculate. In 
commercial leaves the lateral lines are commonly faint or even 
wanting”. He also provided an illustration of this leaf in his Fig. 
14. 
Rusby did not cite a type specimen of commercial Trujillo 
coca. However, his intention was to describe the Trujillo leaf 
found in the New York pharmaceutical trade, and a specimen of 
this material should be designated as a lectotype. No such speci- 
mens are preserved today at the New York Botanical Garden 
where the best set of Rusby’s herbarium is deposited. However, 
an appropriate specimen has been discovered among Rusby’s 
vast materia medica collection now housed at the Harvard 
Botanical Museum. This entire collection was transferred to 
Harvard in 1973 “on indefinite loan from the New York Botani- 
cal Garden.” 
53 
