Chap. 11. UABITAT OF THE CHINCHONA. 21 



CHAPTEE II. 



The valuable species of Chinclioua-trecs — their liistoiy, thek discoverers, auil 



their forests. 



I.— THE LOXA EEGION, AND ITS CROWN BARKS. 



The region around Loxa, on the southern frontier of the 

 modern republic of Ecuador, is the original home of the 

 Chinchona, and nearly in the centre of its latitudinal range 

 of growth. On the lofty grass-covered slopes of the Andes, 

 around the little town of Loxa, and in the sheltered ravines 

 and dense forests, those precious trees were found which first 

 made known to the world the healing virtues of Peruvian 

 bark. They were most plentifully met with in the forests 

 of Uritusinga, Kumisitana, Cajanuma, Boqueron, Yillonaco, 

 and Monje, all within short distances of Loxa. 



Linnaeus had named these trees ChincJimia officinalis ; but 

 when Humboldt and Bonpland examined them, the discovery 

 of other species yielding medicinal bark had rendered the 

 name ina23propriate, and they very properly re-christened 

 them, after the distinguished Frenchman who had originally 

 described them, Chinchona Condaminea. Humboldt says that 

 they grow on mica slate and gneiss, from 6000 to 8000 feet 

 above the sea, with a mean temperature between 60° and 65° 

 Fahr. In his time the tree was cut down in its first flowering 

 season, or in the fourth or seventh of its age, according as it 

 had sprung from a vigorous root-shoot, or from a seed. He 

 describes the liixmiance of the vegetation to be such that the 

 younger trees, only six inches in diameter, often attain from 

 fifty-three to sixty-foiu' English feet in height. "This 



