272 OJs THE CASCARILLA BARK, ETC. 



Eluteria, Linn. Hort. Cliffort., p. 486. 

 Clutia Eluteria, Linn. Spec. Plant, ed. I. p, 1042 (excl. synon. omn 

 proeter Hort. Cliff.) 



Clutia Eluteria, s. Cascarilla, Woodville, Med. Botany, ed. 1, vol. iv., 

 sup. fig. 2 (1794.) 



Clutia Eluteria, s. Cascarilla Clutia, Woodville, Med.Bot. ed. 3, p. 633, 

 pi. 223, Jig. 2. 



Croton Eluteria, Benn. Journ. Proceed Linn. Soc, vol. iv. p. 29. 



From this plaut the ordinary Cascarilla bark of commerce is pro- 

 cured. The species is tolerably abundant in the Bahamas, especially in 

 the larger islands of Andros, Long, and Elutheria, from the latter of 

 which its appellation has been derived, owing to the great supply it for- 

 merly yielded. In New Providence, it flourishes only to a very limited 

 extent, having become nearly extinct from previous demands. A num- 

 ber of small shrubs and young trees may yet be found, within the track 

 of brushwood to the rear of Fort Chariotte, adjoining the town of Nassau, 

 and a few isolated bushes in other districts of the isle. 



Except a few local traditions referring to the use of the cortex for 

 smoking, or fumigating purposes, in the religious or state ceremouies of 

 the ancient Caribs, the data requisite to determine the various native pre- 

 parations of this plant, are lost in obscurity. The custom of smoking the 

 powdered bark conjoined with tobacco, in vogue with the earlier European 

 colonists in these and the Caribbean islands, either to disguise the 

 flavour of the herb, or as a prophylactic agent to avert attacks of sick- 

 ness, may evidently be ascribed to their primitive usages. It is some- 

 what remarkable that Catesby, who visited the Bahama islands about 

 1722, should include a specimen of this shrub in his collection without 

 name or other explanatory remarks, a fact that would lead to the infer- 

 ence this product had not at that period acquired sufficient importance 

 to constitute an article of export. Moreover, the mere descriptive out- 

 line of " Elutheria Providentioz folio cordato, subtus argenteo, with the sole 

 annotation of Siceet bark, s. cortex bene olens" in Petiver's collection of 

 plants, will tend to confirm the opinion, that the bark had not been 

 brought into popular request, otherwise such a special event would have 

 been recorded. 



Linnaeus first briefly, but incompletely, described this species under 

 the true synonym of Cortex Ilitheria, in the ' Hortus Clift'ortianus ' of 

 the British Museum : but subsequently forgetting this detailed fragment, 

 and quoting a series of discordant synonyms in his works, contributed 

 gi^eatly to complicate the identification of later specimens. In the first 

 edition of his ' Species Plantarum,' under the name of Clutia Eluteria, 

 he correctly refers to the Eluteria of the ' Hortus Cliffortianus,' but in 

 the following editions improperly inserts other Crotons, obviously distinct. 

 Linnaeus also classed several of these species by the generic title of 

 Clutiai ; later botanists have however defined them to be true Crotons in 

 the most comprehensive sense of the term. To Woodville, although he 



