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; 1920] BRIEFER ARTICLES 85 





to the fact that a considerable number of new names have been published 

 in a strictly trade journal where they will probably not be noticed by 

 systematists, attention should be called to the naive and wholly unneces- 

 sary publication of the binomial Camphorina saigonica Far well, a 

 nomen nudum, as follows: "The Saigon Cinnamon. Camphorina 

 Saigonica, n.sp. The plant producing the Saigon Cinnamon has not 

 as yet been definitely determined, but it is generally supposed to be an 

 undescribed species. The bark is well described in the U.S. P. on pages 

 114 and 115, and I tentatively propose the above name for the species 

 producing it." In the opening statement it appears as Cinnamomum 

 saigonicum, which may also be credited to Farwell as a nomen nudum, 

 although this is the name of the drug used in the 1905-1907 and 1916 

 editions of the U.S. Pharmacopoeia, where the comment is added: "The 

 bark of an undetermined species of Cinnamomum" Kraemer 2 states 

 that Saigon cinnamon is obtained from Cinnamomum Loureiri ( ?) and 

 other species cultivated in Cochin China and parts of China and exported 

 from Saigon, so that it would appear that the species yielding the prod- 

 uct is by no means generally assumed to be an undescribed species as 

 Farwell indicates. 



Knowing from experience the great difficulty of identifying species 

 of Cinnamomum, even when complete material is available, I com- 

 municated Farwell's proposition to Dr. A. Chevalier, Director of 

 the Institut Scientifique in Saigon, the following quotation being from 

 his letter of July 21, 1919: " Je vous remercie de m'avoir communique 

 un renseignement bibliographique sur la cannelle de Saigon. II n'existe 

 pas dans le commerce de cannelle de Saigon. Celle qui est exportee par 

 le port de Saigon a ete achetee par les marchands chinois en Annam ou 

 elle est fournie par le Cinnamomum Loureiri Nees." See also A. CHEVA- 

 LIER in Bull. Econ., Indochine 22:526. 1919. 



Although Cinnamomum Loureiri is not admitted by Lecomte 3 as 

 an Indo-Chinese species, Chevalier is doubtless correct in his identi- 

 fication. From the very fact that 7 species of Cinnamomum are 

 definitely known from southern China and that 11 are known from Indo- 

 China, coupled with the fact that the accessible parts of both regions 

 are fairly well explored from a botanical standpoint, it is unreasonable 

 to assume that a commercially important species such as the one under 

 consideration has escaped detection up to the present time. 



3 Botany and pharmacognosy, p. 513. 1910; Scientific and applied pharmacog- 

 nosy, p. 304. 191 5. 



* Fl. Gen. Indo-Chine 5:109-117. 1915. 



