200 Dr. W. F. Daniell on some Chinese Condiments 



the authority of Ksempfer, Thunberg, and Siebold being deci- 

 sive on this point. But you mention Xanthoxylum alatum as 

 having been so regarded. I know of no Asiatic species so called, 

 with the exception of Roxburgh's (Flor. Ind. iii. p. 768), which 

 appears in DeCandolle's • Prodromus ' under the name of X. 

 acanthopodium, and differs very widely indeed from the Chinese 

 and Japanese species by its strongly winged and strongly armed 

 petioles, and by its very short and sessile axillary cymes. Its 

 seeds (or, more probably, its capsules), as we learn from Rox- 

 burgh, are used medicinally ; but this is doubtless the case with 

 many of the species, on account of their peculiar taste and odour. 

 The true Japanese pepper, however, must be that which is found 

 in Japan, and which was originally described by Ksempfer, and 

 adopted from him by Linnaeus*. 



"Your Mantchurian specimen from Talie-whan is certainly 

 distinct, and differs, I think, from all the species hitherto known. 

 I characterize it as follows : — 



" Xanthoxylum Mantchuricum. 



" X. aculeis sparsis v. infrapetiolaribus rectis conicis armatum, foliis 

 sparsis imparipinnatis 5-9-foliolatis, foliolo terminali sessili, om- 

 nibus oblongo-lanceolatis utrinque attenuatis subsessilibus crenato- 

 dentatis superne punctulis elevatis piliferis scaberulis cseterum 

 glaberrimis, in crenarum axillis nee alibi in lamina pellucido-punc- 

 tatis, corymbis terminalibus, coccis 1-3 punctulato-rugosis. 



" The differences between this species and X. piperitum are 

 obvious from the character : they mainly consist in the narrower 

 form of the leaflets, the slight scabrities of their upper surface, 

 which I have not noticed in any other species, the entire ab- 

 sence of pellucid glands, except in the axils of the marginal 

 crenatures, and the surface of the cocci, which, instead of being 

 rudely glanduloso-tubercular, as in X. piperitum, are merely 

 pellucido-punctulate and wrinkled. The common petioles, which 

 are angular, are from 2 to 4 inches in length, and the leaflets 

 from 8 to 10 lines long by 3 or 4 wide. This species I had at 



* " Since I wrote to you on this subject, I have looked over Mr. Hanbury's 

 paper in the ' Pharmaceutical Journal' for the present year (1861), and find 

 that he speaks of the fruits of two species of Xanthoxylum as sold in the 

 Chinese markets, the one the produce of X. piperitum, L., the other X. 

 alatum, Roxb. The fruits of both species are remarkably similar in cha- 

 racter ; but I have not seen any specimens of the plant from China which 

 can be positively identified as X. alatum. I have little or rather no doubt, 

 however, of the identity of X. alatum, Roxb., and X. acanthopodium, DC. 

 The specimens distributed by Dr. Wallich under the name of X. alatum, 

 Roxb., agree in every particular with DeCandolle's character of X. 

 acanthopodium ; and the fragment preserved in the Indian herbarium of 

 the Linnean Society, from Dr. Roxburgh's own collection, cannot be distin- 

 guished from them." 



