CORRESPONDENCE. 151 
it boiled, prepared with oil and vinegar, or in curry, and always 
found it a very palatable vegetable. You cannot form any correct 
idea of it from the specimens I sent you, no more than you would 
from any other green vegetable gathered a month or six weeks before 
being used. I consider it ought not to be kept more than a few days." 
The other species of Ahtonia to which I would refer is the A. con- 
drida, or "Bitter Bark-tree " of the colonists of New South Wales, 
large quantities of tbe bark of which were sent a few years ago to 
England, with the idea that it would form a substitute for quinine. It 
grows abundantly about the Clarence and Richmond rivers ; it is usually 
from 25 to 30 feet in height, with a circumference of 3 feet, but 
in favourable situations it attains an altitude of from 40 to 50 feet. The 
foliage is bright green, and the flowers are small, in terminal corymbs, 
and of a very light yellow colour ; the bark is of a greyish colour. The 
bark is much used as a tonic, and by the publicans of the districts, 
where it is indigenous, is prepared and sold as " bitters." From 
having an intensely bitter taste, it has been supposed to possess an 
alkaloid, which may prove a substitute for quinine ; but to my taste it 
closely resembles the peculiar and intense bitter of Quassia, for which it 
may more probably become a substitute. Mr. J. F. Wilcox, of Grafton, 
has sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1867, samples of the bark and 
outer wood, and also a bottle of the decoction. The native name of 
the tr ee at the Clarence, is said to be " Lecambil." 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Dr. Muellers Monograph of the Euphorbiacece. 
_M. Alph. De Candolle, in a letter dated 3rd April, 1867, writes to us : — 
" Le Journal of Botany de Decembre 1866, p. 388, apres avoir parle du volume 
11 Prodromus coneernant les Euphorbiacees, et avoir critique eertaines inno- 
vations du Dr. Miiller en fait de nomenclature, ajoute : ' We trust M. De 
Undolle will hesitate before lie permits such a source of confusion a perma- 
^ ent Amission to the Prodromus.' Dans un article de V American Journal of 
?*■** transcrit dans le numero de Mars 1867 du Journal of Botany, le Pro- 
esaeur Asa Gray presente des reflexions un peu analogues. 
" J estimables auteurs de ces critiques ne paraissent pas avoir connu suffi- 
8am,neut k position des direeteurs suecessifs du Frodromus a l'e-ard des divers 
