79 



that the additional suggestion made in 1888 by Professor Oliver, 

 that the Patchouli plant of commerce may have originated in 

 China, still lacks confirmation. Such a suggestion, seeing that the 

 Patchouli plant of commerce is cultivated by the Chinese in the 

 Straits Settlements, was certainly an extremely natural one to 

 make. It now seems unlikely, however, that it may ever be con- 

 firmed. Not only has no Pogostemon with the Patchouli odour 

 been reported from China; we are now aware that, though 



«... 



neither the Patchouli plant of commerce nor the Indian Patchouli 

 plant, hut is the plant with the Patchouli odour alluded to in the 



as 



n] 



reat 



mar n isauiiinese species which seems to have spread southward 

 as a cultivated plant, to Manipur and the Khasia Mills in A sam 

 and to tlie Shan States of Burma and Siam. There is, indeed, an 

 isolated record of its having reached Java, not improbably as an 

 importation by Chinese settlers; its cultivation there has not. 

 however, persisted, and there is no indication that it ever reached 

 Sumatra. Borneo or tho Mahiv ppninunia 



>ut [K.B. 1888, p. 74] 



have a commercial na 



We know now 



ixjai u po^es^es rne distinctive odour in as marked a degree as the 

 Patchouli plant of commerce itself. We know besides that though 

 it is not now used commercially in India there was a time when 

 this was the source of the Patchapat sold in the Calcutta market, 

 in contradistinction to the market of Bombay, where at one time 

 the Patchapat offered for sale was derived from a cultivated state 

 of Pogottemon Heyneamu. In both markets, h wever, the 

 Patchapat— Patchouli leaf— formerly sold has now been almost if 

 not quite replaced by the leaf of the Patchouli plant of commerce, 

 imported from the Straits Settlements. The cultivation of 

 Microtmna ci/mosa lingers still in native gardens in th« Khasia 

 Hills, where its product is locally used ; and that of Pvffottemon 

 Heyneanu* is similarly continued in native gardens throughout 

 the Indian Peninsula from the Concan and Berar southward to 

 Coimbatore. 



This latter possibility was fully anticipated in the earliest notice 

 of Patchouli in this Bulletin [K.B. 1868, p. 74]. The scented 

 cultivated form in question differs from the feral states of the 

 plant, mentioned in the same place as being of common occur- 

 rence in the Western Peninsula of India from Bombay southward, 

 chiefly in having leav i that are of a slightly thicker con- 

 sistence. These feral states, of which there are two, both extending 

 to Ceylon, are not clearly indigenous in any part of India. One 

 form, much more frequently met with than the other, was 

 described by Bentham in 1830 as Poaostftnon Hfvneanm—he had 



previously. The other 

 as P. Heyneanu.% var. B 



[Wall. Cat. Lith. 1532] two years 

 later distinguished by Bentham 



The more plentiful of the two forms is not, however, confined 

 to India and Ceylon. It is not uncommon in Java, Sumatra, 

 and Borneo ; in the Malav Peninsula it has been collected in 



