41! ODOROGRAPHIA. 



Eeport," above quoted from. The notification was acknowledged and 

 abstracted into the Pharin. Journ. xix., p. 761 ; the quotation being 

 continued as follows : — " Subsequently, during his travels in New 

 Guinea, D'Albertis made a small collection of plants which were 

 examined by the distinguished traveller, Beccari. I extract the 

 following note from the appendix to the English Edition of 

 D'Albertis's 'Xew Guinea' (vol. ii. p. 398, Massoia aromatica, 

 Beccari, Sassafras Gossianum*. In D'Albertis's collection there is 

 but one small specimen of the bark of this Laurinea, which is 

 highly aromatic, and in great request by the Malays as an article 

 of commerce. I have been obliged to find a new generic term for 

 this plant, which it is a positive error to call a Cinnamomum or a 

 Sassafras, as has hitherto been the case .... The name 

 Massoia is derived from ' massoi,' the Malay name of the plant." 



Previous to this explanatory note from Ivew, it w^as believed 

 there were three distinct " Massoi " barks, produced respectively 

 from Cinnamomum xantkoneorum Blume, native of Xew Guinea; 

 Cinnamomum Kiamis Xees, of Java, Sumatra and Borneo, and Sassa- 

 fras Goessianum, Teysmann & Binnendyk, native of Xew Guinea. 

 The first and third named plants are probably identical, and the 

 differences observable in Museum specimens, or dried specimens 

 in Herbaria, may be attributable to the chance of those specimens 

 having been taken from the tree in various stages of it growth, 

 various times in the year and different parts of the tree ; young 

 leaves of a growing shoot being larger, more succulent and of 

 different development than leaves taken near the part of 

 inflorescence or at the period of inflorescence. Dried specimens of 

 leaves of plants are of very little reliable value unless accompanied 

 with full detailed description of the ^^a?^^ of the plant taken from 

 and time of the year when gathered. The appearances of harks 

 must also vary with age of the tree ; the odours of the barks also 

 vary with age; the alterations taking place in the constitution and 

 odour of essential oil in a plant is instanced by the seed of the 

 Coriander. Bearing these facts in mind, and having regard to the 

 difficult tangle in which the Massoi Barks were involved as- 

 recently as ]889 (and are not unravelled yet), it appears quite 

 rational that the essential oil described by Messrs. Schimmel & Co. in 

 their Eeport of Oct., 1888, was distilled from the Massoia aromatica, 

 of Albertis and Beccari, as stated by them, and not from a bark 



*0f Teysmann Oc Binnendyk, Cat. Plant. Hort. Bot. Bogoriensis, 1886, p. 94. 



