81 



been met with also in European cultivated specimens, are in larger 

 whorls, three-quarters of an inch across, which are contiguous 

 throughout the spikes in which the) 7 are arranged, or have only 



the lowest whorl separated by an interspace from the rest of the 

 spike ; the corolla is uniformly pnbfscein outside. 



The Patchouli plant of commerce has been differently named 

 by different authors. TVnore, who flowered it in Italy in 1817, 



[Giorn. Bot. I tab, vol. ib, p. SB] as P. stmt 

 William Hooker, who had received a plant of P. sua vis. 



Ten., 



which flowered at Kew in 1849, describe! 1 it as P. Patchouli, 

 under the impression that it was in reality identical with the 

 plant described by Pelletier, with whom it had flowered in Franc* 

 in 1844. as P. Patchouli/ [Mem. Soc. Sc. Orleans, vol. v., p. 277, 



7] 



Mora 



haul*/ 



it has been suggested that the plant to which Pelletier's description 

 applies is the cultivated plant to which the Indian vernacular name 

 Patchouli belongs, rather than the plant which yields the Patchouli 

 of commerce. Now, however, that better material of the Patchouli 

 plant of commerce has reached Kew from the Philippines, where 

 it is sometimes grown in gardens, and where, as Mr. Merrill has 

 recently ascertained, it is oftener wild, and is undoubtedly 

 indigenous, it is found that Sir William Hooker's conclusions are 

 certainly right. His identification of P. suaviSf Ten., with 



as 



must 



We are, however, fortunately relieved of the necessity of using 

 for the Patchouli of commerce the name P. Patchouli/, applied to 

 it by Pelletier. In the Philippines, where the plant is native, it 

 bears the vernacular name Oablan. This name was taken up by 

 Blanco, who descril I the plant for the first time under the name 

 Mentha Cablin. The plant was duly transferred b> Bentbam 

 to its proper genus as Pogostemon Goblin* Bentbam has thus 

 provided a name for the Patchouli of commerce which has the 

 double advantage of being botanically admissible and at the same 

 time free from ambiguity. 



So far then as Patchouli is concerned one or two points appear 

 still to be obscure. It is not clear where the plant known to the 

 natives of India as Patchouli or Patcha is indigenous, though on 

 the whole it is probably a native of the western portion of the 

 Indian Peninsula, as suggested in the Kew Bulletin for 1888, 

 p. 74. Nor is it clear when the wild Philippine species, which is 

 the source of the Patchouli of commerce, first began to he cul- 

 tivated, or how this plant should have found ita way into the 

 hands of the Chinese immigrants who cultivate it in the Straits 

 Settlements. 



Two adulterants are mentioned by Wray [K. B. 1889, p. 137] as 

 being added to commercial Patchouli. One of these, Perpulut, 



as 



[K. B. 1888, p. 72] 



>bata, Linn. The other, Kuku, is stated to be Ocrmum 

 , Linn., var. / losum, Benth. To some extent this plant 



as a rule, is 



L PoiL In 



does appear to be so employed. But the 

 not applied to O. Basilic urn, but to Hy/ 



31012 







