LIGNUM NEPHRITICUM SAFFOED. 277 



of yielding a blue pigment like indigo, yielded a yellowish brown 

 dyestnff.^ 



Sargent in his Silva of North America gave an amended descrip- 

 tion of the genus Eysenhardtia, in which he for the first time estab- 

 lished the combination Eysenhardtia polystackya^ but it is evident 

 that he was unaware that this species had anything to do with the 

 classic lignum nephriticum or that its wood yielded a fluorescent 

 infusion. Concerning it he simply says : " The wood of some species 

 is hard and close-grained and affords valuable fuel. The genus is 

 not known to possess other useful properties." ^ 



The third edition of the Nueva Farmacopea Mexicana (1898) 

 repeats Oliva's observations under the heading " Taray de Mexico," 

 but in a footnote states that leiio 7iefritico had been erroneously 

 attributed to Varennea polystachya, or Eysejihai^dtia amm'phoides 

 H. B. K., and that its classification was not known." 



In a subsequent edition of this work the name polo dulce is omit- 

 ted, except as applied to the European licorice. Fliickinger and 

 Hanbury, in their well-known Pharmacographia (1879), are silent 

 about lignum nephriticum, although for several years before the 

 publication of this work Hanbury had been seeking to identify it.* 

 Dragendorff refers to it as a species of Guajacum.'' 



Dr. Otto Stapf, guided by Ramirez and Alcocer's Sinonimia 

 vulgar y cientifica de las Plantas Mexicanas (1902), referred a piece 

 of wood, labeled " cuatl " in the Paris Exposition, to Eysenhardtia 

 amorphoides; but the wood was unaccompanied by botanical ma- 

 terial by which it might be identified with certainty.*^ He gives a 

 history of the wood known as lignum nephriticum in early literature, 

 and also quotes several Mexican authorities but not Oliva, cited 

 above, nor any Philippine author. He accounts for the fact that the 

 flowers were described by Hernandez as yellow, by the supposition 

 that there are varieties of Eysenhardtia yielding lignum nephriticum 

 which have yellow flowers, although, as a matter of fact, no such 

 forms occur in the localities cited by writers on the subject ; and the 

 only species in which the flowers are yellow are low scrubby plants, 

 belonging to a distinct section, which never attain the size even of a 

 small tree, nor have a stem with a diameter sufficiently great for a 

 cup, or even approaching the dimensions of the pieces of lignum 

 nephriticum hitherto described. 



1 Altamirano, Fernando. " Leguminosas indigenas medicinales," in La Naturaleza, 

 4: 97-98. 1879. 



- Sargent, Charles Sprague, The Silva of North America, 3 : 30. 1892. 



3 Nueva Farm. Mex. 153. 1896. 



* See Oliver and Hanbury, in Admiralty Manual of Scientific Inquiry, p. 391. 1871. 

 " Lignum nephriticum. — This rare wood, noticed by some of the earliest explorers of 

 America, is a production of 'Mexico. To what tree is it to be referred? Its infusion is 

 remarkable for having the blue tint seen in a solution of quinine." 



^ '• Das Lignum nephriticum der alteren Medicin wird wohl von einer Guajacum-Art 

 stammen." Dragend. Heilpfl. 345. 1S98. 



" See Stapf, Otto. Kew Bull. Information, 1909, pp. 293-305. 1909. 



