MERRILL: ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF TAXONOMY 59 



moogra oil except that Hydiiocarpits Alcalae C. DC. contains a very large 

 amount of chaulmoogric acid and little or no hydnocarpic acid. The total per- 

 centage of oil varied from a minimum of 11 percent to a maximum of 39 per- 

 cent. Now as far as known none of the Philippine and Bornean species was 

 utilized for any purposes by the native population. They were, of course, 

 unknown to the small technical public outside of the very few botanists, and 

 it is an interesting commentary to note that as to the Bornean Hydnocarpiis 

 Woodii Merr. trees were actually found to be growing within the limits of the 

 leper colony on Sandakan Harbor ; a remedy actually at hand, but previously 

 unknown, and its potentialities hence unrealized. 



In the latest treatment of this group^° Taraktogenos Kurz is reduced to 

 Hydnocarpiis Gaertn. and a total of forty species are recognized. Not more 

 than one-fourth of these species have been investigated from a pharmaceutical 

 standpoint; and yet from what is known of the properties of those that have 

 l:)een investigated it is safe to assume that the seeds of most of the species of 

 the genus will be found to yield the same curative principles as are found in 

 the true chaulmoogra oil. 



Thus from analogy, working from a Burmese species, the curative principles 

 in its seeds being known, investigations extend to the seeds of the Philippine 

 and Bornean species of the same genus, Hydnocarpus, with potentially impor- 

 tant economic results. These examples will suffice to demonstrate what has 

 been done in special cases, and by analogy we may expect that in the future 

 similar investigations will be extended to very many species that have hitherto 

 never been considered as even worthy of investigation ; but in a reasonable 

 percentage of cases we may definitely assume that these species, as yet unknown 

 and unappreciated from an economic standpoint, will be shown to produce 

 needed and otherwise unattainable products. Here the tempo increases under 

 the pressure of necessity brought about by war conditions in reference to sup- 

 plies of rubber, quinine, and various other products for which, in the past, we 

 have depended largely on Asia and Malaysia for our supply ; and our economy 

 and even way of life was increasingly geared to various imported basic prod- 

 ucts which now are unobtainable elsewhere. Now new sources must be devel- 

 oped, if not from the same species so successfully developed in the specialized 

 agriculture of certain parts of the Old World (even although in some cases 

 based on native American plants, such as Hevea and Cinchona), then from 

 others that yield similar products. It is in this specialized field of potential 

 substitute plants that may yield important products that we now lack, that the 

 trained and experienced taxonomist can render, and is rendering, fundamentally 



^^ Sleumer, H. Monographic der Gattung Hydnocarpiis Gaertner nebst Beschreibung 

 und Anatomic der Friichte und Samen ihrer pharmakognostisch wichtigen Arten (Chaul- 

 mugra). Bot. Jahrb. 69: 1-94. t. 1-4. 1938. 



