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Chiriqui. Having now a thorough knowledge of the Smilax which 
Humboldt and Bonpland named S§. officinalis, I began to examine the 
different species considered allied to it. The first one attracting my 
notice was Smilax papyracea of Poiret. On this species Mr. Robert 
Bentley had, in April, 1853, published an able article in the ‘ Phar- 
maceutical Journal ; and applying to that author for additional infor- 
mation, he, like a true man of science, most cheerfully granted my 
request, and willingly allowed me to examine the specimens which 
served as materials for his article. A critical examination of them 
convinced me, what I had already anticipated from comparing Bent- 
ley’s description with the specimens of S. officinalis in my possession, 
and Poiret’s diagnosis of S. papyracea, that Smilax papyracea and S. 
officinalis were identical. The second species arresting my attention 
was Smilax medica of Schlechtendal and Chamisso. This species 
has been well described, and a tolerably good figure of it has been 
published, by Nees; a close comparison of which with Smilax papy- 
racea and &. officinalis proved it to be identical with them ; so that 
the three names, S. officinalis, H. et B., 8. papyracea, Poir., and S. 
medica, Cham. et Schlecht., are synonymes of one species, a fact easily 
accounted for, when it is considered that the roots, stem, branches, 
and foliage from which the chief characters of these three supposed 
species had been derived are more variable than those who make spe- 
cies in their closets are apt to think. 
Having now shown what number of synonymes belong to the true 
S. officinalis, | proceed to give an account of the plant itself, in order 
to prevent botanists from making similar mistakes to those they have 
already committed. Smilax officinalis grows on the slopes of moun- 
tains, to an elevation of 5000 feet above the sea, and is confined, as 
far as we at present know, to the Continent of South America, where 
it ranges between the 20th degree of North and the 6th degree of South 
latitude, and the 110th and the 40th degrees of West longitude. 
Jamaica, whence so great a portion of sarsaparilla used is annually 
obtained, does not produce any itself, as has been well ascertained ; 
the article known by the name of “ Jamaica sarsaparilla” is merely 
imported into that island from the Spanish main, and afterwards ship- 
ped for Europe and the United States of America. Nor are there any 
authentic data for believing that S. officinalis occurs in any other 
island of the West Indies, although such a distribution would be by 
no means an unlikely one. 
The rhizome (chump) of the plant is cylindrical, and the roots (the 
sarsaparilla of commerce), abounding, according to age and the place 
