ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
BULLETIN 
OF 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
No. 104.] AUGUST. [1895. 
CCCCLXVII.—VANILLAS OF COMMERCE. < 
AN article on the cultivation and curing of Vanilla appeared, with a 
plate, in the Kew Bulletin, 1888, pp. 76-80. Other articles have 
pp. 206-208. The following historical and descriptive account of the 
species yielding aromatic fruits, more or less used in commerce, has heen 
prepared by Mr. R. A. Rolfe, A.L.S., Assistant ia the Kew Herbarium. 
The principal species is Vanilla planifolia, Andr., a native of Sou 
I 
rn Mexico, now widely cultivated in many "tropical onl 
ee et Schiede, yields the illoes loupe, while the 
allied e, i cmt een Brazilian or Bahia Vanilla 
y " 
Both V. appendiculata, Rolfe, a d V. odorata, Presl., produce aromatic 
fruits, but there is no evidence "that either is cultivated at the present 
or economie purposes. . pheantha is under cultivation at 
Jamaica and Trinidad as a vanilla plant. The fruit has, however, a 
little perfume. 
r. Rolfe has monographed the known species of the genus, 50 in 
aeter; and the result will be communicated to the Linnean Society. 
The descriptions of the species either known or likely to be of economic 
value have been extracted for the present paper. They bear the 
numbers attached to them in Mr. Rolfe’s systematic enumeration :—~- 
From historical accounts we learn that vanilla was used by ‘the 
Az Mexico as an i. ard in the manufacture of chocolate prior 
to the discovery of America by the Spaniards, "os adopted its use, and 
Morren states that it was brought to Europe as a perfume about the’ 
year 1510 at the same time as indigo, RE and cacao, and ten 
years before the arrival of tobacco. 
The earliest botanical notice of the vanilla is by Clusius, in his 
Exoticorum Libri Decem, published in 1605. This author had received 
fruits from Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth, in 1602, which he 
described as “ Lobus oblongus sicat (p. 72), without being aware 
of theif native country or use. He describes them as 6 to 8 inches long 
by half an inch broad, and terete, fei which it is eie that they 
belonged to the true Mexican Vanilla (V. planifolia) 
In 1651 a figure was given by Hernandez in his Nova Plantarum 
Mexicanorum Historia (p. h under the name of Araco ue 
U 88472.  1875.—9/95 x 
