CIMICIFUOA. 



CINCHONA. 



The moot common specie* i* the Cimtje (ecfWoriiu, the Bvd-liug. 



CIMICITCOA (etmer, a bug, and fugo. to drive away), g*nu of 

 PUnU belonging to the natural order Kanunculncea. The calyx u 

 composed of four deciduous sepals; corolla of four petals; style* 

 one to fifteen ; the carpel* dry, dehiscent, many-seeded. The specie* 

 are perennial herb*, with divided leave*, and raceme* of whitish 

 flowen; the root* act a* drutic purgative* and are poisonous. 



C. firtida. Stalking Bug- Wort, ha* four almost aeanle and very 

 villou* ovaries ; the raceme* panicled ; the leave* terminate or 

 bitornate ; the leaflet* ovate-oblong, deeply-toothed. It i* a native 

 of the Carpathian Mountain*, Dauria, Eaitern Siberia, and the north- 

 we*t oout of America, It U a very fetid plant, and in u*ed in 

 Siberia for driving away bug* and fleas, juat a* tansy and wormwood 

 are uaed in thi* country. 



C. terpentaria. Black Snake-Root or Bug- Wort, has compound very 

 long racemes; the leaves triternate, with serrated or rather cut 

 leaflet*. It i* a native of North America, from Canada to Florida. 

 It has white flowers, and resembles the species of Acteea, to which 

 genus it wa* formerly referred under the name of Actaa rartmnta. 

 Like many other plant* possessing active properties, it has a repu- 

 tation in America for healing the bites of snakes and preventing their 

 poisonou* effect* on the system. There is one species, C. Japonita, 

 a native of Japan ; the rest are American plant*. They are easily 

 cultivated, preferring a moist shady situation, and may be propagated 

 by dividing the roots, or by seeds. 



(Don, Gardener t Dictionary.) 



CIMOLITE, a hydrous silicate of alumina found in the Inland of 

 Ciniola. It occurs in amorphous earthy manoos, the structure of 

 which is rather slaty. Colour grayUh-white. Fracture earthy, 

 uneven. It is soft and opaque, and its specific gravity is 2'0. It is 

 used for the same purposes as Fuller's Earth. It is allied to Halloysite. 

 [HALLO Y8JTE.1 



CI'NCHONA, a genus of Monopetalous Exogenous Plants, the dif- 

 ferent species of which have a great reputation in medicine. It consti- 

 tute* the type of the natural order Cmchunacr<r. It is known by the 

 following characters : Tube of the calyx top-shaped, with a per- 

 manent 5-cleft limb. Corolla with a taper tube, and a 5-partod 

 limb, which is valvate in [estivation. Filaments short, inserted into 

 the middle of the tube, within which the linear anthers are altogether 

 inclosed. Stigma 2-cleft, a little clavate. Capsule ovate or oblong, 

 slightly marked on each side by a furrow, 2-celled, crowned by the 

 calyx, dividing through its dissepiments into two halves. Placenta 

 long. Seeds numerous, erect, imbricated upwards, compressed, with 

 a broad membranous winged border; albumen fleshy. Trees or 

 shrub*, with a bitter aromatic astringent bark. Leaves on short 

 talks, with flat edge*. Stipules ovate or oblong, leafy, separate, 

 deciduous. Flowers in terminal panicled corymbs, white, or of a 

 rosy-purple colour. 



By whom the important properties of the various species of this 

 genus were first made known to Europeans is unrecorded ; for it is 

 not worth repeating the fable* that have been invented upon the 

 subject The native Peruvians, who call the trees Kina, or Kinken, 

 attach no febrifugal importance to the bark, but are said even to have 

 a prejudice against its employment. It* introduction to Europe 

 took place through the Spaniards in the year 1640, and it in pre- 

 tended that a certain countess Chiuchon, vice-queen of Pent, having 

 experienced the good effect* of the bark as a febrifuge, it 

 gamed the name of Pulvis Comitissw, and under that name, 

 or as Pulvis Jesuiticua, was vended by the Jesuit*, who derived 

 a considerable part of their wealth from its trade. Humboldt regards 

 a tradition still current in Loxa as a more probable explanation of 

 the discovery of the properties of Cinchona. It is said that the 

 Jesuit missionaries there had endeavoured, according to the custom 

 of the country, to distinguish the different kinds of tree* by chewing 

 their bark, and that this had led them to observe the remarkable 

 bitterness of Cinchona. Those who were medical among them were 

 thus led to try an infusion of the bark in tertian agues, which are 

 very common at Loxa, and thus the discovery of its power was made. 

 Little wa* known of the tree producing this substance till the 

 voyage of La Condamine, who, in 1738, first printed a detailed 

 account of Quinquina, a* it was then called. Since that time the 

 attention of botanists ha* been constantly directed to the subject, 

 and a good deal of information has upon the whole been collected ; 

 the general fact* connected with the habitation, geographical range, 

 mode* of preparation, and botanical dixtinction* of the specie* have 

 been ably stated by Hmnlxildt, Kuiz and Pavon, Fee, De Candollc, 

 Lambert, Poppig, and Lindley, and will form the basis of the suc- 

 ceeding short account ; but in all the minor details regarding the 

 barks themselves, and the species that furnish them, European* are 

 till much in the dark. 



To this genus botanist* have from time to time referred plants 

 which, upon a more careful examination, have been ascertained not to 

 belong to it ; West Indian, Brazilian, and even East Indian Cinchonas, 

 thus nave found a place in books, )>nt they are really referribli- to 

 other genera. Circumscribed within the limits of the preceding 

 character, Cinchona will be found a mountainous genus confined to 

 th Cordilleras, between La Paz, in about 22" & lat, and Santa 



Martha, near 10* N. lat ; a line having thee northern and southern 

 limit*, and bounded by the most eastern part of the Cordilleras on the 

 one hand and the Pacific on the other, will very nearly define the 

 corner of the globe inhabited by true Cinchona*. Within these limits 

 they occur on the plains, but chiefly on mountain ride* a* far a* 10,000 

 feet of elevation above the sea, the principal zone being at from 1800 

 to 6600 feet of elevation. In these places the mean temperature i* 

 estimated by Humboldt at from 17 centigrade, or 62-6 Fahrenheit, 

 to 12* centigrade, or 53'6" Fahrenheit 



The manner of collecting the Huanuco Bark of commerce is thus 

 described by Poppig (' Companion to the Botanical Magazine.' 

 p. 249). " In the month of April the preparations for an expedition 

 commence ; and in May the people start for the forest, whence the 

 last green bales are transmitted home in November. They fell the 

 trees close to the root, sparing those trunks which appear too young 

 (palos verdes), as, till they have attained maturity, the bark in '.if n<> 

 value. The next process is to divide (trozar) the stems into piece* of 

 uniform length, rejecting only the very smallest branches. With a 

 peculiar kind of knife, made for the purpose, the bark is cut 1- 

 wise, and a certain degree of practice is necessary to perfon 

 operation properly so as to remove the rind without injuring the wood 

 or severing any of the fibre*. With the same instrument they take off 

 the stripes (longos) of the bark as broad as possible; but this li" 

 is not done for three or four days after the tree is felled, as bef< > 

 time the moisture that exists between the cuticle and the wood w. mid 

 prevent the bark from severing into such large pieces as fett-h tli.- 

 highest price. A worse consequence ensues from stripping tin 

 too quickly, as then the thin grey or blackish epidermis shivers off; 

 and from the presence of this outward rind, covered with 

 cryptogamia, the value of the bark in the European market is mainly 

 estimated. The English purchasers in particular hold the 

 that the bark is most powerful according as its epidermis is covered 

 with spots. 



"On the celerity with which the article is dried de|>ends tli. 

 which it commands; but there are few instances where prejudice is 

 so powerful as in the trade of the Cinchonas. In the dense forests it 

 U impossible to perform this operation properly, and therefore the 

 bundles of green bark are dispatched with all speed to the nearest 

 inhabited place, where the person appointed to take the charge of 

 them is stationed. Without any preparation they are laid in a spot 

 exposed to the full action of the sun, the greatest care being requisite 

 to protect them from wet, as even a few hours' dew falling on the 

 half-ilried bark will give to the cinnamon-brown interior of the finest 

 sort a blackish appearance, and lesson its value about one-half. The 

 quickness of the drying and the general excellence of the article are 

 indicated by the pieces being rolled up into several spiral win 

 which form so solid a cylinder as to exhibit no cavity (canuto) wit In n ; 

 but such portions are rarely seen unfractured in Europe. The cin- 

 chona barks are no less sensible of atmospheric moisture tli 

 Coca, which I formerly described, so that the collectors always I 

 to send them to the dry climate of the Andes, or the principal towns. 

 An unavoidable loss however hence accrues: however perfectly tin- 

 bark may have been dried in the woody region, it still loses, in tlnve 

 or four days after it* arrival in Huanuco, 12 to 15 per cent on iti 

 weight. The packages are made up into bales of four or five in 

 each, and with the greatest possible care, in order that the beautiful 

 canes of two feet long, into which the bark was coiled on the Montana, 

 may not be broken in the carriage. Trailing plants (bejucos) in- 

 to tie up the bundles, and when they arrive in Lima tlu-y are, n* 

 and sorted into lengths of different pieces previously to dispatching 

 them in chests to Europe. The trade in Huanuco Bark w: 

 brisk twenty years ago at Lima, and the article went to tin- S: 

 market under the name of Caicnrilla rotea, without being c< >nt 

 with the Cortex Chinee rvber, as it is called by us. The bark?- 

 tin .li.itricts of the Lower Huallaga, of Huambo and Chochapoyaa, 

 &c., are, on the other hand, very little prized in Cadiz, and called 

 CaicariUa aroUada." 



Books and memoirs without end have been written to determine 

 the different species of Cinchona that yield the barks of conn 

 lint with very little result There art- difficulties in tin- way of this 

 wliirli persons unacquainted \\ith the bark trade con hardly exti 

 For example, the bark of the same species may be weak ami v:> 

 in warm lowland districts, and of the greatest price in ah- 

 mountainous regions. The bark of the low country about S. Jam de 

 Bracamorros has uniformly proved worthless, although the same 

 species which grow there afford a fair bark at Mayobai n . 1 1 >oya, 



and Lamas in the mountains ; and others which at Maynas ni 

 fectly inert, are energetic enough upon the sides of the mnunt.tr 

 is related by Poppig that, in ignorance of this, many specula! in 

 chant* have been ruined by the purchase of the bad low! 

 Peru. Th rule is, that the best bark always comes from maintain 

 tops, from singletrees growing in the coldest and most i-l.-\at- 

 Some of the finest kinds are procured near the mountain villages of 

 Cayambe and Pillao, and from the mountains of Panataguos and 

 Pampayaco. 



To pretend to reduce to their botanical species, in the i-xi.-t iir 

 of knowledge oi rmrliona barks, all the vurintie* that an- known in 

 shops or in commerce, would be a vain and hopeless task. N 



