100 COMMERCIAL BOTANY. 



Peumus Boldtis. — A shrub 10 to 20 feet high, native of 

 Chili, and cultivated in gardens in its native country for 

 the sake of its fragrant flowers and leaves. The plant 

 flowers in its native home in autumn, but under cultivation 

 at Kew and the Royal Botanical Society's Gardens, Regent's 

 Park, the flowers have appeared in winter. The plant be- 

 longs to the natural order Monimiacese, and the leaves, under 

 the name of Boldo, were introduced to this country in 

 1874, as an aid to digestion as well as ia diseases of the 

 liver. The properties of the plant are said to have been 

 discovered by noticing the beneficial effects upon a flock of 

 sheep that were suffering from liver disease. Having been 

 shut up in a fold which had been recently repaired with 

 the twigs of the Boldo plant, the sheep ate of the leaves 

 and shoots, and recovered very speedily. The leaves, dried 

 and pulverised, are used in BrazU as a sternutory. 



Physostigma venenosum. — A perennial climbing plant 

 with a woody stem- 50 or more feet high, belonging to the 

 natural order Leguminosce, and found near the mouths of 

 the Niger and Old Calabar River. The seeds are known 

 under the names of Ordeal Beans of Old Calabar, or 

 Calabar Beans, and they were first brought to notice in 

 England about the year 1840 by Dr. W. F. Daniell, who in 

 1846 brought them more prominently forward in a paper 

 read before the Ethnological Society. The poisonous effects 

 of the beans on the human system were noticed by Chris- 

 tison in 1855, and again by Sharpey in 1858. In 1859 a 

 plant was sent by an African missionary to Professor 

 Balfour, of Edinburgh, who described it under the name it 

 now bears. It was not tiU about 1863 that Professor 

 Eraser discovered that an alcoholic extract of the seed 

 possessed the power of contracting the pupil of the eye, since 

 which time it has been used in ophthalmic practice, as well 

 as in tetanus, rheumatic, neuralgic, and similar affections. 

 The plants are somewhat rare in Africa, being des>troyod by 



