In 1979, Susan Marie Rossi began at the Botanical Museum 
the task of curating and re-cataloguing Rusby’s collections of 
medicinal plant products, contained largely in glass jars. She 
recovered, among other coca specimens, a jar labeled “No. 2684, 
Erythroxylon truxillense Rusby, Truxillo coca, small coca, 
native of Peru and cultivated. The commercial drug presented 
by E. Merck & Co., New York City.” This specimen corresponds 
to a listing in Rusby’s catalogue (1921) of plant products 
included in the now defunct Economic Museum of the New 
York Botanical Garden. The provenience of this specimen is 
confirmed by the occasional presence in the sample of leaves of 
pacay, Inga Feuillei D. C. This leguminous tree, a native of 
Peru, is commonly planted as a shade tree in plantations of 
Trujillo coca and its leaves often appear as a contaminant of 
commercial Trujillo leaf. This sample, identified by Rusby, is the 
most appropriate of Rusby’s collections to serve as the lectotype 
of his species EF. truxillense. 
In addition to his cursory description of Erythroxylum truxil- 
lense, Rusby created further confusion by describing a living 
plant which he found in flower at the conservatory of the New 
York Botanical Garden in August, 1900. He knew nothing of the 
origin of this plant but likened it to his E. truxillense, but not 
without some reservations. He provided a brief description of it 
and stated that this plant was “unquestionably the same thing 
which Dr. Burck speaks of as Java coca and for which he pro- 
poses the name EF. Coca Spruceanum.” 
Rusby made an herbarium specimen of this living plant and 
deposited it at the New York Botanical Garden herbarium 
labeled E. truxillense Rusby. The following year (1901), he pro- 
vided further descriptive details of the plant and published a line 
drawing of it (Rusby 1901, fig. 2). From both the specimen and 
the drawing, it is certain that this plant represents typical 
Colombian coca, E. novogranatense var. novogranatense. 
It is likely that the living plant which Rusby confused with 
Trujillo coca’ was derived from progeny of the “Kew Plant” 
originally named by Morris, in spite of Rusby’s contention that 
his plant did not match Morris’s £. Coca var. novogranatense. 
We now know that FE. novogranatense is at least partially self- 
compatible (Plowman, unpublished data; Ganders, 1979) and 
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