132 
Times Trade Suppl. April 10, 1920, draws attention to a case 
in the Trinidad Botanic Gardens where transplanting caused 
small trees to recover and produce a normal quantity of camphor. 
From these observations it seems important to consider in the 
first place the situation most suitable for the camphor-tree and 
also to find by experiment the best time for clipping the leaves. 
But there is another line of enquiry that may lead to useful 
results, viz. as to the existence of botanically distinct camphor- 
yielding varieties. One of the chief objects of Kew in obtaining 
specimens of the trees grown in various colonial plantations was 
to compare them with examples of the true species of China and 
Japan, and to determine whether the non-camphor-producing 
specimens differed in any botanical way from the valuable kind. 
Mr. Lan (Bull. Econ. Indo-Chine 1907, 205) believed that they 
did so differ, and that a red colour suffused the buds and twigs 
of the camphor-producing variety, while its absence marked the 
oil-producing trees. But these indications were admitted by 
Mr. Crevost in the same journal to be merely due to difference 
of exposure, and Mr. Eberhardt surmised that they are rather 
an indication of the degree of the maturity of the tissues than of 
any inherent peculiarity (l.c. 1909, 145). In further criticism of 
this supposed varietal character, Mr. Joseph Jones, Curator of 
the Botanic Garden of Dominica, states that even in green- 
twigged plants the red colour appears in drying. Further 
observations may prove that the appearance of red colouring, 
though not a permanent character is a useful indication of the 
time at which the camphor appears in the leaves. The smell 
of the crushed leaves is noticed to resemble that of camphor in 
the trees that yield that substance, whereas the “ oil-tree ” 
leaves smell of turpentine or eucalyptus. The Chinese are said 
to differentiate between the valuable and worthless trees in 
Formosa by this distinction. Whether this is a permanent 
character is not quite clear. 
In 1912, Mr. W. R. Price collected specimens (Price 425) of 
an “‘ oil-producing tree ’’ growing wild in the forest in Formosa. 
This proves to be Cinnamomum Camphora, Nees, var. glaucescens, 
Braun, differing from the type in the glaucous colour of the 
under surface of the leaves. The variety was known to Braun 
as a cultivated tree in Java and in the Botanic Gardens in 
Berlin, and he described it as giving a smell more of terebinth 
than camphor. Meissner, however, in his monograph of Lauraceae 
(DC. Prodr. xv. 24), reported that the same specimens smelled 
of pure camphor. The variety has been known in cultivation 
for a long time, and a very old tree in the Botanic Garden at 
St. Vincent has the same character of producing no solid camphor. 
Besides these two slight colour indications no visible varietal 
characters can be found in any part of the tree to separate 
‘‘camphor’”’ trees from “oil” trees. But a further line of 
endeavour should also be pursued. The occurrence of the so- 
called oil and camphor-trees side by side in the same wild or 
