BUCHU. 227 



Buchu 



Bu ch u Fol ia, as described by the British Pharmacopoeia, are the 

 dried leaves of Barosma crenulata, Hook ; Barasma hctulina, 

 Bartliug: and Barosma serratifolia, Willdenow. 



The leaves of these three species are entirely derived from the 

 Cape of Good Hope, the exports from Cape Colony amounting to 

 nearly half a million pounds weight annually. 



The name Barosma has been applied to this genus of Butacece 

 on account cf the heavy, powerful and penetrating odour that the 

 species possess. The genus is botanically characteristic by an 

 equally 5-parted calyx; 5 oblong petals, 10 stamens, of which 5 

 are sterile and petal-like, alternately with the 5 shorter, fertile 

 stamens ; the style of the same length as the petals and the ovary 

 5-lobed. The species are small evergreen shrubs with opposite or 

 alternate, simple, dotted, leathery leaves, in the axils of which the 

 flowers are placed on stalks. They are all natives of the Cape of 

 Oood Hope, where the leaves are used by the Hottentots as a 

 perfume ; their principal use in Europe and America is medicinal, 

 — as a stimulant and tonic, and in chronic diseases of the bladder, 

 the active properties probably being dependent on the powerful 

 volatile oil which the leaves contain. The leaves of all the 

 species are smooth, coriaceous, more or less serrate or crenate at 

 their margins, and marked on the edges and especially on their 

 under surface with glands filled with essential oil. They have 

 a dull greyish-green colour, somewhat paler on their under 

 >surface. 



B. crenulata (Bot. Mag., t. 2413; Loddiges, Bot, Cab., 

 t. 290 ; Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plant., t. 46 ; Berg, in Bot. 

 Zeitung, 1853, t. xii., figs. A.-Q.), grows abundantly in stony, 

 hilly valleys in the western parts of Cape Colony, S. Africa, 

 including the neighbourhood of Cape Town itself and the 

 mountains of Stellenbosch and Worcester. It was introduced 

 into England a century ago and was cultivated as an ornamental 

 plant for many years, but does not appear to have perfected seed 

 here ; being also ditiicult to propagate by cuttings it has now 

 almost disappeared. The leaves of this species vary in shape and 

 size in different commercial samples, but are of the kind sometimes 

 distinguished as ovate-ohlong Buchu. 



