CORTEX WINTERANUS. 17 



mended in America as an external application for reducing inflam- 

 mation.^ 



MAGNOLIACEJE. 



CORTEX WINTERANUS. 



Cortex WinteH, Cortex Magellanicus ; Winter's Bark; Winters Cinrui- 

 inon ; F. Ecorce de Winter; G. Wintersrinde, Magellamscher Zinimt. 



Botanical Origin — Dnmys' WinteH Forster, a tree distributed 

 throughout the American continent from Mexico to Cape Horn. It 

 presents considerable variation in form and size of leaf and flower 

 in the different countries in which it occurs, on which account it has 

 received from botanists several distinct specific names. Hooker* has 

 reduced these species to a single type, a course in which he has 

 been followed by Eichler in his monogi'aph of the small order 

 Winteracece*. — In April, 1877, the tree was blossoming in the open air 

 in the botanic garden at Dublin. 



History — In 1577 Captain Drake, afterwards better known as Sir 

 Francis Drake, having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a commission to 

 conduct a squadron to the South Seas, set sail from Plymouth with five 

 ships ; and having abandoned two of his smaller vessels, passed into the 

 Pacific Ocean by the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of the following 

 year. But on the 7th September, 1578, there arose a «ireadful storm, 

 which dispersed the little fleet. Drake's ship, the Pelican, was driven 

 southward, the Elizabeth, under the command of Captain Winter, 

 repassed the Straits and returned to England, while the third vessel, the 

 Marigold, was heard of no more. 



Winter remained three weeks in the Straits of Magellan to recover 

 the health of his crew, during which period, according to Clusius (the 

 fact is not mentioned in Hakluyt's account of the voyage), he collected 

 a certain aromatic bark, of which, having removed the acridity by 

 steeping it in honey, he made use as a spice and medicine for scurvy 

 during his voyage to England, where he arrived in 1579. 



A specimen of this bark having been presented to Clusius, he gave 

 it the name of Cortex Winteranv^, and figured and described it in his 

 pamphlet: "Aliquot notse in Garcise aromatum historiam," Antverpise, 

 1582, p. 30, and also in the Libri Exoticorum, published in 1605. He 

 afterwards received a specimen with wood attached, wliich had been 

 collected b}'- the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weerdt. 



Van Noort, another well-known Dutch navigator, who visited the 

 Straits of Magellan in 1600, mentions cutting wood at Port Famine to 

 make a boat, and that the bark of the trees was hot and biting like 

 pepper. It is stated by Murray that he also brought the bark to 

 Europe. 



1 Yearhool- of Pharmacy, 1872. 385. *Martius, Flor. BroK. fasc. 38(1864) 134. 



* From SpLnvv, acrid, biting. Eichler however admits five principal varie- 



^ Flora Antarctica, ii. (1847) 229. ties, viz. a. Magellanica ; /3. Cldlensis ; y. 



Granatensis ; 6. revoluta ; t. aiigwiti/olia. 



