198 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



time, De Gorter had repeatedly sent its seeds to Linnaeus *, but the 

 young plants which they produced constantly perished : at length he 

 obtained the fresh root, which succeeded very well at Upsal, and 

 afterwards enabled the younger Linnaeus to describe this plant f 

 ann. 1767, But two years antecedent to this, Dr. Hope's account 

 of the rheum palmatum, as it grew in the botanic garden near 

 Edinburgh, had been read before the Royal Society at London ; 

 and of the great estimation in which this plant was held by him, we 

 have the following proof: " From the perfect similarity of this root 

 with the best foreign rhubarb in taste, smell, colour, and purgative 

 qualities, we cannot doubt of our being at last possessed of the 

 plant which produces the true rhubarb, and may reasonably enter- 

 tain the agreeable expectations of its proving a very important ac- 

 quisition to Britain." But from the relation we have given, it appears 

 that the seeds of both R. undulatum and R. palmatum, were trans- 

 mitted to Petersburgh, as those of the true rhubarb: we are there- 

 fore to conclude, that the former species has an equal claim to this 

 importance with the latter; and from further inquiries made in 

 Russia, there is the best authority for believing that the R. com- 

 pactum also affords this very useful drug. The seeds of the rheum 

 palmatum were first introduced into Britain in J 762, by Dr. Moun- 

 sey, (who sent them from Russia) and were supposed to be a part 

 of those already mentioned ; and since their prosperous cultivation 

 by the late professor of botany at Edinburgh, the propagation of 

 this plant has been gradually extended to most of our English gar- 

 dens, and with a degree of success which promises in time to super* 

 sede the importation of the foreign root. 



Two sorts of rhubarb roots are usually imported into this country 

 for medical use, viz. The Chinese J, and the Turkey rhubarb ; the 



* See the letters between De Gorter and Linnrus, by Nozeman, in Ver- 

 handelingen van het Genootschap to Rotterdam, vol. i. p. 455, and cited by 

 Murray. 



f Vide Plant, rarior. hort. Upsal. fase. I. 



$ Colitur hoc a Chinensibus, praecipue in provincia Xensi sub nomine Tai- 

 hoang, Bergius, M. M. p. 332. 



^ ' Olim, quum commercium in orientalibug regionibus per Natoliam fieref, 

 Rhabarbarum ex portibus Turcicis ad Europaeas transferebatur, unde nomen 

 Rhabarbari Turcici." Murray, 1. c. Mr. Bell (in his Travels from St. Peters- 

 burg to divers parts of Asia) says, that the best rhubarb grows plentifully on a 



