FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB. 297 



at the extraordinary price of £1 per ounce is recorded. The 

 latest New York quotation is §1.00 per ft). 



In Europe Guarana is at present principally used in 

 Medicine, as the basis of medicated tonic wines, &c. But a 

 firm of Chocolate Manufactures in Holland is stated to be selling 

 a mixture of Guarana and Chocolate under the name of 

 Guarana-Chocolate with great success. Not only is it held 

 in high esteem as a food as well as a medicine through 

 all South America from Brazil to Mexico ; but there are not 

 wanting signs of its beginning to win its way into popular favor 

 both in Europe and North America, as an alimentary beverage 

 worthy to rank with Tea, Coffee and Chocolate. 



Another plant, which would be a very promising introduction 

 is the Star-Aniseed tree (Ilicium Anisatum N.O. magnoliacece 

 called Badiane in Tonquin, and Qua-hoi in China. This is one 

 of the most valuable spice plants of the present day and the 

 seeds cost 75/-9S/ shillings per cwt. The seed is largely 

 exported from Tonquin, and both the seed and its oil from 

 China and they are largely used in Europe as a spice, and in 

 Perfumery, and Liqueur manufacture, while there is a large and 

 increasing market for this and other spices in the U.S.A. 



So close to us as Florida, there is a wild and poisonous 

 species of Star- Aniseed (the "Poison-Bay") /. Floridanum ; 

 and where a notoriously difficult plant like the Mangosteen from 

 Malaya (where there are several wild specimens of Ilicium) 

 fruits here, there can scarcely be any doubt, this plant of 

 similar climatic origin, though of much wider habitat (Malaya 

 to Japan) will be comparatively easy of propagation. 



This plant grows to about the height and size of a cherry 

 tree. The branches are angular, spreading in an upward 

 direction. The leaves are alternate on the stems and also grow 

 in tufts of 3-4 together at the ends of the small branches, 

 they are evergreen and about 2 inches in length. The flowers 

 grow from the Oxittce of the branches on solitary pederneles. 

 They are yellow in color, and the corolla is composed of 16 

 petals. Eight or more germs are contained in each flower, and 

 the fruits bear the exact shape of a star with six to eight 

 points about the size of a sixpence, nearly £ inch thick, pale 

 brown, in color, and of a stiff", leathery consistence. The 

 c ipeules, as well as the seed they contain have a strong flavor of 

 anise. The seeds are smooth, glossy and cinnamon colored, and 

 eliptical in form. The whole plant has a pleasant aromatic odor. 



In Tonquin, the seeds are sown in manured soil and the 

 young plants issue from the ground in 20-30 days : in the 

 second or third month they attain the height of 7-8 inches, 

 they are then transplanted and pricked out a distance of 19-20 

 feet from each other, and always on slopes free from stones, 



