May 15, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



233 



derive many of their most valuable products) that the real 

 source of liquid storax, which is known to have been 

 sent to India from the ports of the Red Sea as early as the 

 first century of the Christian era, and was known in Greece 

 during the sixth or seventh centuries, was not found out 

 until a few years ago. 



The origin of this drug long perplexed pharmacologists, 

 and the first account of it was published in a Greek news- 

 paper in 1841, and only definitely settled in 1851. | The 

 chief market for this drug is still, as it always has been, India, 

 and considerable quantities are consumed in China also. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Cordia Greg-gii, var. Palmeri.* 



THIS is another of the showy flowering shrubs discov- 

 ered last year by Dr. Palmer in the mountains about 

 Guaymas. In its general habit and more important charac- 

 ters it accords with the species to which it is referred as a 

 variety, which is a native of the Sierra Madre region farther 

 to the east, where it was first collected many years ago 

 by Dr. Gregg. This variety differs mainly in its larger and 



Fig. 106, — Cordia Greggii, var. Palmeri. 



The Asiatic species of Liquidambar (Z. Formosana, 

 Hance) is found in southern and eastern China, in the 

 Island of Formosa, and in Japan. § It is the Feng-tree of the 

 Chinese, and it has quite recently been discovered that the 

 wood of this tree is very generally used in making the 

 cases in which Chinese tea is exported.- Mr. Hemsley 

 finds another Chinese species in Herb. Kew, of which little 

 is yet known {Journal Linncean Society, of London, xxiii, 

 297). Its wood is also used for tea-chests. C. S. S. 



tSse Pharmaceutical yournal, xvi. 41, 461. There is a figure of this species in 

 Hooker's Icojtes, t. 1026. 



§ Liquidambar Cliinensts (see Hooker's Keiv yournal 0/ Botany, iv. 164) is now 

 referred to the genus Altingia, of which the type is Altingia excelsa, IStoronha 

 {Liquidambar Altingia of Blume), a widely-distriouted tree from east Bengal to 

 China and the Malayan Islands. 



broader flowers, the other differences in foliage, etc., being 

 less conspicuous. 



It is a much-branched and rather compact shrub, grow- 

 ing to a height of five to eight feet, with numerous small 

 pubescent and light green leaves, strongly veined and 

 sharply toothed. It is a very free bloomer, bearing the 

 flowers in clusters at the ends of the branches, broadly 

 funnel-form, pure white and fragrant. The fruit is some- 

 what fleshy, enclosed within the dilated calyx-tube, and 

 contains a very hard 1-4-seeded stone. In the size and 

 beauty of its flowers this species equals the Cordia Se- 

 bestena and others of the same group. 6". W. 



' Cordia Greggii, Torn, var. Palmeri, Watson in Proc. Amer. Acad., xxiv. 6i. 



