278 MYKTACEA 



and is also found in Northern Australia, Queensland, and New 

 South Wales. 



The tree, according to Bentham,^ varies exceedingly in the size, 

 shape, and texture of the leaves, in . the young shoots being silky, 

 and the spikes silky-villous or woolly, or the whole quite glabrous, 

 in the short and dense, or long and interrupted spikes, in the size 

 of the flower, and in the greenish-yellow, whitish, pink, or purple 

 stamens, so that it is difficult to believe all can be forms of a 

 single species. Yet upon examination, none of these variations are 

 sufficiently constant or so combined, as to allow of the definition of 

 distinct races. 



The variety growing in Bouro, where the oil of cajuput has 

 been distilled ever since the time of Rumphius, and known as M. 

 TiiinoT Smith, is described by Lesson, who visited the island in 1828, 

 as a tree resembling an aged olive, with flowers in little globose 

 white heads, and a trunk the stout bark of which is composed of 

 numerous satiny layers. 



History — Rumphius, who passed nearly fifty years in the Dutch 

 possessions in the East Indies and died at Amboyna in 1702, is the 

 first to give an account of the oil under notice, and of the tree 

 from which it is obtained.^ From what he says, it appears that the 

 aromatic properties of the tree are well known to the Malays and 

 Javanese, who were in the habit of steeping its leaves in oil which they 

 then impregnated with the smoke of benzoin and other aromatics, so 

 obtaining an odorous liquid for anointing their heads. They likewise 

 used cushions stuffed with the leaves, and also laid the latter in chests 

 to keep away insects. 



The fragrance of the foliage having thus attracted the attention of 

 the Dutch, probably suggested submitting the leaves to distillation. 

 Rumphius narrates how the oil was obtained in very small quantities, 

 and was regarded as a powerful sudorific. 



In Europe it appears to have been first noticed by J. M. Lochner,^ 

 of Niirnberg, physician to the German Emperor. About the same time 

 (1717), a ship's surgeon, returning from the east, sold a provision of the oil 

 to the distinguished apothecary Johann Heinrich Link at Leipzig, who 

 published a notice on it and sold it.^ It began then to be quoted in 

 the tariff's of other German apothecaries,^ although it was still reputed 

 a very rare article in 1726.*" Somewhat larger quantities appear to 

 have been soon imported by Amsterdam druggists.'^ In Germany the 

 oil took the name of Oleum Wittnebianwm, from the recommendations 

 bestowed on it by M. von Wittneben, of Wolfenbiittel, who was much 

 engaged in natural sciences and long resident in Batavia.^ In France 

 and England, it was however scarcely known till the commencement of 

 the present century, though it had a place in the Edinburgh Pharma- 

 copoeia of 1788, In the London Price Current, we do not find it 



^ Flora Atistralietisis, iii. (1866) 142. * Vater, Catalog, varior. exofkor. rari^- 



- Herb. Amboinenae, ii. (1741) cap. 26. »imor Wittenbergae, 1726. 



" Acad. Nat. Curios. Epliemerkl. Cent. ' Schendus van der Beck, De Indke 



V. vi. (Niimberget, 1717) 157. rarloribm. Act. Nat. Cur. i., appendix 



* Sammlunyvon Natur wid Medkin. . . (1725)123. 



(j'fl-sc/uchien, Leipzig, 1719. 2-37. * Goetz, Old Caieput historia — Commer' 



^ Phnrm. Jotirn. vi. (1876) 1023. cium Lltlerariurn, 1731. 3; Martini, De 



Oleo W'dtnebiano disHfrtatio, 1751. 



