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BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CamMBRIDGE, Massacuuserts, Marcu 31, 1938 Voi. 5, No. 9 
CASTILLA OR CASTILLOA#? 
BY 
ALBERT F. Hin 
IN A RECENT BOOK REVIEW, Dr. A. B. Rendle’ com- 
mented on the use of the generic name Castilla for the 
Panama or Central American Rubber Tree, pointing out 
that it should be Castilloa. Although the question as to 
the correct name for this genus has been discussed in the 
past by Cook’, Pittier’ and others, it may be worth while 
to restate the essential facts. 
In 17938, Vicente Cervantes delivered a lecture on bot- 
any at the Real Jardin Botanico in Mexico City during 
the course of which he described the rubber tree of Mex- 
ico and Central America and proposed for it the name 
Castilla elastica. The following year (1794), the text of 
Cervantes’ lecture was published‘ in a Suplemento 4 la 
Gazeta de Literatura de Mexico, together with a figure 
of Castilla elastica. The generic name was chosen to com- 
memorate Juan Diego del Castillo (1744-1798),a Spanish 
pharmacist and economic botanist, whose death occurred 
while he was compiling a flora of Mexico. 
In 1805, with a view to rendering more accessible 
various botanical articles which had appeared in obscure 
journals, Charles Koenig® of the British Museum pub- 
lished translations of nine rare or little known contribu- 
tions. Among these was Cervantes’ article. In the trans- 
lation, however, the generic name was altered to Castilloa. 
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