276 ON THE CASCARILLA BARK., ETC. 



considered to be synonymous, by botanical and pharmaceutical authors 

 until the present time. 



Sloane, in his work on Jamaica, was the first to notice this plant 

 under the descriptive outline of " Mali folio arbor, artemisise odore et 

 flore," a dried specimen of which, exists in the Linnasan herbarium of 

 the British Museum, in a good state of preservation. In the fifth 

 volume of ' Amoenitates Academica,' Linnaeus, under the same designa- 

 tion of Clutia Eluteria, confused it with the Bahama Cascarilla (C Elu- 

 teria, Benn.) : Swartz, m his Flor. India? Occidentalis,' described the tree 

 with ovate acuminate leaves, silvery beneath, and composite axillary 

 racemes, by the name of Croton Eluteria, under the impression it fur- 

 nished the ordinary bark of commerce ; and this mistake has subse- 

 quently been continued in most of tbe works of Materia Medica. 



"Woodville, in the several editions of his ' Medical Botany,' gives a 

 bad delineation of both this and the Bahamian Cascarilla, evidently view- 

 ing them to be identical. Nees von Esenbeck, in his ' Plantae Medicinales,' 

 has also incorrectly stated this species to constitute the officinal Cascarilla 

 bark. His figure has apparently been taken from the plant in the Herb- 

 arium of the British Museum. Hayne also, in his ' Arzneycunde,' adheres 

 to the same mistake ; and Pereira, in his elaborate work, labouring under 

 the impression that Swartz' s and the Bahama plants were identical, has 

 also erroneously represented the former, with its connected descriptive 

 details, as supplying the modern drug of the markets. Guibourt, m his 

 1 Histoire des Drogues,' has also considered it to yield the same article. 



This species, though commonly met with as a low bushy shrub, from 

 four to six feet in height, often assumes an arborescent form, and attains 

 an elevation of twenty feet or more. The trunk is more or less covered 

 with a whitish wrinkled epidermis, as in the preceding plant. The leaves 

 are petiolate, broadly ovate, blunt or with a blunt point, perforated with 

 transparent dots, thinly sprinkled on the upper surface with peltate 

 scales, beneath, more numerous, and of a whitish or silvery hue. A 

 marked distinction may be observed in the character of the inflorescence 

 compared with other species, the compound spikes, or rather racemes, 

 being more frequently axillary than terminal, and densely clothed with 

 small, subsessile, white, and fragrant flowers. The fruit consists of the 

 usual tricoccous capsule, indicative of the genus, about the magnitude of 

 a pea, each cell containing a small brown ovoid seed. The pericarp is 

 minutely warted (Swartz), and studded with peltate scales. There are 

 grounds for supposition that the employment of the cortex of this plant 

 by the colonists of Jamaica for various medicinal uses, may have led 

 Dr. Wright into the belief that it was identical with the Cascarilla bark 

 of the shops, and the warm aromatic taste and agreeable flavour of all 

 parts of the shrub would tend to confirm this opinion. Although it is 

 stated to be applied to the cure of dise ise by the negro inhabitants of the 

 island, I have not been able to obtain any detailed account of the mode 

 of administration, or of the affections, for the treatment of which it is 

 exhibited. 



