March 24, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



433 



amorphoides, but his specimen was not accom- 

 panied by botanical material whicli would 

 serve to establish, its identity with certainty, 

 and a later investigator, Dr. Hans-Jacob 

 Moller, of Copenhagen, who also made an ex- 

 haustive study of the wood from historical and 

 pharmacological standpoints, failing to find 

 fluorescence in specimens of Eysenhardtia 

 wood sent to him from Mexico (" das Kern- 

 holz von einem recht dicken Ast," which 

 yielded " keine Muoreszenz ") arrived at the 

 conclusion that the mother-plant of lignum 

 nephriticum must be a Mexican species of 

 Pierocarpus.- 



The conflicting conclusions of Dr. Stapf and 

 Dr. Moller, assigning lignum nephriticum to 

 mother-plants of two distinct genera, caused 

 the writer to continue his researches as to the 

 origin of this classic wood, the botanical iden- 

 tity of which he had been seeking to establish 

 for more than twenty years. Specimens of 

 wood accompanied by botanical material suffi- 

 cient to identify it with Eysenhardtia poly- 

 stachya came into his possession in 1914 and 

 led to the publication of his paper "Eysen- 

 hardtia polystachya, the source of the true 

 lignum nephriticum Mexicanum," in the Jour- 

 nal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 

 in August, 1915. Certain discrepancies, how- 

 ever, in the early accounts of lignum nephri- 

 ticum caused him to pursue his investigations 

 still farther. 



Dr. Stapf assumed that the Palum Indianum 

 of which Johannes Bauhin's cup was made, 

 " almost a span in diameter and of unusual 

 beauty," with chips of the same wood of a 

 reddish color, and the " white " wood yield- 

 ing an infusion like pure colorless spring 

 water, of which Athanasius Kircher's cup was 

 made were both identical with the dark- 

 colored wood used by Eobert Boyle in his his- 

 torical study of fluorescence. A further source 

 of confusion was Hernandez's account of the 

 logs of lignum nephriticum carried to Spain, 

 specimens of which he declares he has seen 

 "larger than very large trees." Bauhin's 



2 Berichte der deutschen Fharmas. Gesellsch., 

 Vol. 23, pp. 88-154, 1913. 



figure of his wood does not in the least sug- 

 gest the wood of Eysenhardtia polystachya, 

 but does resemble the wood of Pterocarpus 

 indicus of the Philippine Islands. 



We have an authentic account of the manu- 

 facture of cups from this Philippine wood and 

 of their medicinal use, exactly as described by 

 Bauhin and Kircher, written by Father 

 Delgado, who, when a boy in Cadiz, was given 

 fluorescent water to drink from one of them, 

 as a remedy for a certain malady, and who 

 afterwards saw the cups in southern Luzon. 

 Delgado identifies the wood of which these 

 cups were made as that of the Philippine naga 

 or narra (Pterocarpus indicus), a tree of great 

 dimensions, yielding logs of large size, many 

 of which were undoubtedly carried to Spain 

 by way of Mexico at a very early date. Of 

 this wood there are two recognized varieties, 

 one pale colored, locally designated as " fe- 

 male," the other of a reddish color, called 

 "male" narra. Prom the first of these was 

 evidently carved the cup described by Kircher ; 

 from the second the cup presented by Dr. 

 Scliopff, physician to the Duke of Wiirtemberg, 

 to Bauhin. 



Very distinct in texture and appearance 

 from the wood of the Philippine Pterocarpus 

 indicus is that of the Mexican Eysenhardtia 

 polystachya. Moreover, the latter species never 

 attains the size of a tree capable of yielding 

 large logs. It must also be noted that there 

 is no record of a single cup made of its wood. 

 A search for such cups in Mexico has been 

 futile, while cups made of Pterocarpus indicus 

 were common in the Philippines at the time 

 when Delgado wrote. They could only reach 

 Spain by way of Mexico, and they might easily 

 have been thought to be of Mexican origin. 

 Delgado was a Jesuit and it was from the 

 Procurador of the Jesuits in Mexico, that the 

 Jesuit Kircher received the cup described by 

 him. 



A full account of the two woods known as 

 lignum nephriticum, illustrated by colored 

 plates, will appear in the Smithsonian Report 

 for 1915. W. E. Safford 



Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 February 2, 1916 



