REPORT OF THE BOTANIST. 



Sir : I have the honor to submit a report upon subjects wliicli have 

 received theatteutiou of the botanical division dnriiiji- the current year. 

 It rehites, first, to foreign mediciual plants, which it is believed inight 

 be successfully introduced into cultivation in this country ; second, to a 

 number of our native medicinal plants, which it is desirable to render 

 familiar to the public on account of present and prospective value ; and 

 third, to the characters of fungous plants, and to some special forms of 

 their manifestation in the production of destructive plant diseases, pro- 

 pared by the assistaiit botanist, F. L. Scribner, and others. 



For a number of years past the attention of medical men and phar- 

 macists has been unusually attracted toward the subject of medicinal 

 plants, both 'native and foreign, and the last annual meeting of tlio 

 American Pharmaceutical Association, by resolution, requested the 

 Commissioner of Agriculture to talio measures for the introduction into 

 cultivation in this country of such of the important foreign medicinal 

 plants as would be adapted to our climate, in order that they might bo 

 readily obtained in a fresh state, and that another industry might bo 

 added to our country's resources. It is represented that many hundred 

 thousand dollars are annually sent abroad for drugs and medicinal sub- 

 stances that might bo produced at home. There is no doubt at all that 

 many of the mo^ important medicinal plants, as tlie opium pop])y, the 

 rhubarb plant, the licorice plant, arnica, belladonna, digitalis, and 

 many others are perfectly adapted to our climate and could be cultivated 

 in perfection, as we know with respect to some of tlieni from experiments 

 made many years ago. Some other semi-tropical products, as ginger, 

 cinchona, vanilla, jalap, and sarsaparilla, may in all ])robability be suc- 

 cessfully cultivated in the extreme southern i)ortiou of the country, and 

 it would seem well that means should be taken to give such plants a 

 proper trial. 



A new and powerful anaesthetic remedy, prepared from the leaves of 

 a shrub called coca, or, botanically, Erythroxylon coca, has been re- 

 cently introduced into medical and surgical practice. 



This shrub is a native of Central and South America, and on account 

 of the difficulty of obtaining the leaves in a fresh and active state, it 

 has been thought highly desirable that the growth and cultivation of 

 the plant should be attempted in some locality within our own borders. 



With respect to our native medicinal plants and drugs, their collec- 

 tion and traffic have been very generally extended during the last de- 

 cade, so that thousands of people in diflerent parts of the country, 

 flhotably in the mountain regions of ISTorth Carolina and Tennessee, and 

 |in other Southern and Western States, are employed at certain seasons 

 of the year in this enterprise. Fears are expressed that some of these 

 plants are becoming exterminated in their native habitats; and in re- 

 spect to some of them, as, for instance, the ginseng plant, the time has 

 come when they may probably be made the objects of profitable culti- 

 vation. 



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