Chap. I. CHARACTERISTICS OF A TRUE CIIINCHONA. 



18 



and at the upper limit of their zone they become mere 

 shrubs. The leaves are of a great variety of shapes and sizes, 

 but, in most of the finest species, they are lanceolate, with a 

 shining surface of bright green, traversed by crimson veins, 

 and petioles of the same colour. The flowers are very small, 

 but hang in clustering panicles, like lilacs, generally of a 

 deep roseate colour, paler near the stalk, dark crimson 

 within the tube, with white curly hairs bordering the lacinigB 

 of the corolla. The flowers of Q. micrantha are entirely 

 white. They send forth a delicious fragi-ance which scents 

 the ail' in their vicinity. 



The earliest botanists gave the name of Chinchona to a 

 vast number of allied genera, which have since been 

 separated, and grouped under other names .^ There are three 

 characteristics by which a true chinchona may invariably be 

 known ; the presence of cm-ly hairs bordering the laciniae of 

 the corolla, the peculiar mode of dehLscence of the capsule 

 from below upwards, and the little pits at the axils of the 

 veins on the under sides of the leaves. These characters 

 distinguish the cliinchona from many trees which grow with 

 it, and which might at first sight be taken for the same genus. 

 The fact, estabKshed by the investigations of chemists, that 

 none of these allied genera contain any of the medicinal 

 alkaloids, has confirmed the propriety of their expulsion from 

 the chinchona genus by botanists ; and Dr. "\Yeddell gives a 

 list of seventy-three plants, once received as Chinchonae, 

 which are now more properly classed under allied genera, 

 such as Cosmibuena, Cascarilla, Exostemma, Remijia, Laden- 

 hergia, Lasionema, (Src* 



Thus thinned out and reduced in numbers, the list of 



2 Endlicher separated the species 

 whose capsules begin to open from the 

 top, and fanned them into a snb-genus, 

 which he called Cascarilla. Klotzsch, 

 cf)mhining these with other species cha- 



racterised by a six-parted corolla, raised 

 them to an independent genus called 

 Ladenheryia. 



* Histoire naturelle des Quinquinas, 

 p. 72, 



