396 CHONDODENDRON VEL CHOND.RODENDRON. 



CHONDODENDRON OR CHONDEODENDRON. 



1874. IN the Pharmaceutical Journal for Nov. 14, 1874, it is 



remarked that the authors of the Pliarmacographia prefer to 

 write Chondodendron, and not as the derivation of the word 

 would seem to require, Chondvodendron. The proposal to insert 

 an r in the second syllable emanated from Mr. Miers, who, in 

 his Monograph of the Menispermacece, states that the word 

 was originally mis-spelt through an error in the press. 

 Spelling. As this name, which is that of the genus to which the Pareira 

 Brava plant has been shown to belong, may come into more 

 frequent use than hitherto, it is well that we should know what 

 reasons may be urged in favour of each way of spelling. 



The genus made its first appearance in the work of the 

 Spanish botanists Ruiz and Pavon, entitled Florce Peruvians et 

 Chilensis Prodromus, sive novorum generum plantarum Peruvia- 

 narum et Chilensium descriptions et icones, published at Madrid 

 in 1794. Here we find it Chondodendron, with the derivation 

 explained thus " a granorum copia quibus arloris truncus et 

 rami olsiti sunt" This is in allusion to the Greek word ^oVSpo?, 

 signifying a corn, grain, or any small roundish mass ; and is 

 appropriate to the plant by reason of the little black warty 

 spots that cover the bark, chiefly of the younger wood. 



From such an origin, coupled with SevSpov, a tree, the word 

 Chondwdendron would naturally result: but for some reason 

 as I believe, for the sake of euphony the authors of the 

 genus chose to drop the first r, and to write Chondodendron. 

 That this was by no typographical error is obvious. The word 

 occurs again and again; and though there are enumerated 

 several " erratas de impresion" Chondodendron is not among them. 

 Four years after the Prodromus, the authors published their 

 Systema Vegetdbilium Florce Peruvians et Chilensis, in which 

 they still retained Chondodendron ; in fact, the name has been 

 almost universally accepted. 



Thus De Candolle in his Systema, published in 1818, as well 

 as in the first volume of his Prodromus, which appeared in 1824, 



