18 HUTCHINSIA ALPINA A BRITISH PLANT? 359 
tensely bitter. I shall carry it on until I get a clear solution for testing 
for quinine and chinchonine; ene or other, or most probably both of 
which are present in considerable proportionsyy A quantitative analysis 
of the leaves would be invaluable, as it would decide the question 
which is constantly asked of me, “ Can we remuneratively get quinine 
from the leaves?" It is important to note that the quinine evidently 
exists in the old leaves—those that are about to fall off. The Chin- 
chona (at least C. succirubra) belongs to that large class of tropical 
plants that are half-deciduous ; that is, they retain their leaves through- 
out their period of rest, and throw them off at the commencement of 
the growing season, so that the tree is never absolutely bare, but looks 
only much thinned of its leaves for six or eight days, and is in full 
. leaf again in about a week. We might pick the leaves, then, just as 
the growing season is returning, and do no damage. The Chinchone 
are not evergreens in the sense that Myrtles, Laurels, etc., are. 
My largest plant at Darjeeling is a plant of C. officinalis I got from 
Ceylon in the end of January : on the 15th of August it was thirty- 
six inches high. The largest QC. succirubra was two inches shorter. 
There were in August 7000 Chinchona plants at Darjeeling. 
.. Calcutta Botanic Gardens, August 22nd, 1863. 
IS HUTCHINSIA ALPINA, R. Brown, A BRITISH PLANT? 
Br rus Rev. W. W. Newsoutp, M.A., F.L.S. 
Will botanists visiting Ingleborough early in spring* endeavour to 
answer this question? Two specimens of it have been shown me by 
Mr. Carruthers in a collection of British plants,” which is apparently 
the one bequeathed to Sir J. E. Smith in 1805, by Mr. Arthur Bruce, 
of Ballochmyle, Ayrshire (see Sir J. E. Smith’s Memoir, vol. i. p. 434), 
and afterwards long in the possession of the Linnean Society; they are 
labelled, * Lepidium petraum, Ingleborrow, Mr. M‘R{itchie],” and seem 
to have been gathered late in the last century, if we may judge from 
the dates of other plants accompanying them. It cannot be safe to 
consider the Yorkshire station an error, when it is remembered that 
both the caleareous soil and altitude which the plant requires are found 
* This plant flowers in Germany in April and May, according to Koch's ‘ Syn- 
Opsis.’ 
