the Danali of Commer.ton. 37 



r>f one of them. It may be readily seen that the other 

 plants wliich accompany each of them, either as belonginir 

 to the same genus or as its neighbour, participate more or 

 less in the quaUtv^ on account of which it is emploved. 

 Thus it has been found that ahnost all the stctlntcc of Uav 

 are tinctorial ', almost all the seeds of the neighbf)uring 

 genera of the cofTec shrub, sulbcientlv large to be torriiied 

 with advantage, appear to be of the same nature. The case 

 is the same with cinchon.i. I have sc;.'n the bark of a 

 beautiful tnussenda of the Isle of France employed as a 

 feJ)rifut>e by a physician, one of mv Iriends. 



'i'hese qualities also are seen to pass from one groupe to 

 another. It is thus that the Indians extract the beautiful 

 rtd colour of the chail/ivcr, which, according to Adanson, 

 was a hi'th/oiis, and which Koxburgh has di-scribed as an 

 oldenlaiidiu, 'i'hcv extract also a red colour from the royoc 

 oTinorUida. The cinchonas themselves have given colours. 

 Some of their particular properties have been found also in 

 shrubs wliich had a very distant relation to them. The 

 psi/dititria emeticn approaches near to some of those which 

 have been found to be emetic. The nntirhica of Commerson, 

 or wood of the lastca//, participates in the anti-dysenteric 

 quality of the last-mentioned plant, in a word, according 

 to G:£rtiier and several others, a kind of cofi'ee has been ex- 

 tracted from the seeds of the (i/jari/ic. 



Other properties less extensive in one groupe have others 

 analogous to them in another. Thus thr pretty species of 

 iheimissenda, which Connnerson named, after hiscountrv- 

 Hian, Lalaiidia >>teU'i flora, has a relation to the (isperala 

 oiLoratu. It« dried leaves, like those of that plant, acquire 

 an agreeable f^ouj*, on which account they are put amon!'' 

 linen : on iXxv: other hand, the fetid and cadaverous odour 

 of the pwdcr'm is found in the icriisa of Jussieu, or the 

 dijsoda of Loureiro, and m the fruit of some kinde of pi/- 

 rostrhi. 



However vague these indications may be, they mav serve 

 as guides in experiments ; and though one cannot previously 

 assert that a rubiaccous plant possesses any of its properties, 

 one will not be surprised to find them in it. When I was 

 * in Madagascar, in 1795, I saw without astoniglmient the 

 natives of the country extract, from the root of a rubiaceous 

 plant, the red dye they employed for tlie cloth which 

 the\ wore of thread, made from the tafia palm. J readily 

 knew It to be a creeping shrgb, common in the elevated 

 rlaces of liic Isle of France. 



C3 On 



