290 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



great width that a single one " siifRceth for making a door or a table." 

 After praising the wood for its usefulness for construction purposes 

 and for its durability when exposed to moisture, he speaks of its 

 reputed medicinal virtues, and adds : 



The city called Niieva Caceres by the Spaniards bears among the natives the 

 name Naga, on account of the abundance of this tree throughout those prov- 

 inces of Camarines and Albay, where they carve very curious cups out of it for 

 drinking water. Those made of female naga are much the better, for this wood 

 tingeth the water very quickly to a celestial color, more quickly than the male. 

 These cups are much esteemed in Europe and are regarded as a gift well worthy 

 of any prince. Out of one of these cups they made me drink when I was a 

 child, in Cadiz, as a remedy for hydropsy and oppilation, and I think that it 

 might have helped me had I not drunk too mucli.^ 



This description of Delgado, w^ritten in 1754, but remaining unpub- 

 lished until 1892, certainly connects the Philippine wooden cups 

 with those of Kircher and Bauhin, which really were presented to 

 an emperor and to a noble duke. Indeed, it is quite probable that the 

 wood originally described by Monardes was of Philippine instead of 

 Mexican origin; for it must be borne in mind that for a long time 

 after the discovery of America the only trade route from the Philip- 

 pines to Spain was by way of Mexico, and many products of the 

 "Indies" attributed to New Spain (Mexico) Avere really of Philip- 

 pine or East Indian origin. The " white " wood of which Kircher's 

 cup was made might well have been the pale narra or " female " wood, 

 which from long continued use yielded a very pale or even white 

 infusion, and the variegated wood yielding red sawdust, described 

 and figured by Bauhin, was without doubt the red or " male " narra 

 of the Philippines. 



These two kinds of wood were believed by Padre Blanco to come 

 from distinct species of Pterocarpus. He described the tree yielding 

 the pale wood as a ncAv species, Pterocarpus paJlklus, while he errone- 

 ously referred the red wood to the East Indian Pterocarpus san- 

 talinus, which is the source of the well-known " red-sanders wood " 

 of commerce.- The vernacular names given by him for these trees 

 are narra, naga, asana, daitanag, and apalit. 



Padre Blanco's Pterocarpus pallidus has been identified with 

 Peterocarpus indicus, a species previously described from the little 

 island of Amboyna in the Malay Archipelago; and his so-called P. 

 santalmus, quite distinct from the younger Linnaeus's species of that 

 name, has been named by Mr. E. D. Merrill Pterocarpus Blancoi; but, 

 as Mr. Merrill has already suggested,^ it is so very close to the first 

 species that it is perhaps not specifically distinct from it. 



1 Delgado, J. J. Hist. gen. de las Islas del Poniente, llamadas Filipinas, p. 415. 1892. 



" Blanco, Manuel. Flora de Filipinas, 560, 561. 1837. 



8 Merrill, E. D. rhilippine Journ. of Science, Botany, 5: 100. 1910. 



