951 



1851, at a meeting of the Paris Academy of Science, it was announced 

 that M. Lecoy had succeeded in separating the active principle on 

 which the therapeutic properties of the Cedrou depend, and that he 

 had called it " cedrine." Thus, it took exactly 150 years, after the 

 Cedron was first brought into notice, before a satisfactory account of 

 the tree and its properties was obtained. 



The Cedron seems to be confined to the republic of New Granada, 

 ranging between about the 5th and 10th parallels of North latitude, 

 and the 75th and 83rd of West longitude. It is generally met with 

 on the outskirts of woods, on the banks of rivers, and on the sea- 

 shore, but is never found under other trees ; and although it occa- 

 sionally forms small groves, yet it never constitutes extensive woods 

 of itself, and must always be considered as a rare plant. The tree 

 attains about fifteen feet in height ; the stem, when about twelve 

 feet high, produces a terminal panicle, which prevents it from pro- 

 longing itself; but, instead, side branches appear, which also, in 

 their turn, send forth their terminal flowers and side branches. The 

 effect of this mode of growth is, that the tree looks as if cut, 

 something like Salix capitata, or perhaps more like a full-grown 

 Cycas circinalis, and may therefore be called a " magnified um- 

 bella." In diameter the stem seldom exceeds six inches. The pin- 

 nated leaves are glabrous, from two to three feet long, and have 

 generally more than twenty leaflets. The panicle (not raceme) is very 

 often from three to three and a half feet long, and bears flowers about 

 an inch in diameter, the corollas of which are externally covered 

 with a brownish hair ; internally, they are glabrous, and of a greenish 

 colour. The stamens are ten in number, and the ovaries five ; but 

 in most cases only one of the latter is developed into a mature fruit, 

 the rest being usually abortive. The fruit, about the size of a swan's 

 egg, has the appearance of an unripe peach, being covered with a short 

 hair. Each of these fruits (drupes) contains one seed (the Cedron of 

 commerce), easily separated into two large cotyledons, which look 

 very much like blanched almonds, but are larger and plano-convex. 



Every part of the plant, but especially the seed, is, owing to the 

 presence of cedrine, intensely bitter. On account of this principle, it 

 is extensively, and with considerable success, used in cases of inter- 

 mittent fever, by the physicians of New Granada, a country in which 

 forests of Quina-trees abound. But the chief reputation of the Ce- 

 dron rests upon its being considered an eflBcacious antidote for the 

 bites of snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and other noxious animals ; 

 and so highly do the natives of the land in which it grows value it, 



