Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 331 
or two; but whether the larger volume of the bark thus produced will con- 
tain a proportionate excess of alkaloids, is a subject which at present rests 
in obscurity. 
Professor Balfour read a letter which he had received from John Allan 
Broun, F.R.S., of the Trevandrum Observatory, Madras, in which he 
says:—‘‘ I used to botanise when in Scotland, and have always felt 
anxious to do something in that way among our unknown mountains, but 
my other pursuits have always prevented me. I tried to make a collec- 
tion of a few plants, chiefly orchids, ferns, and mosses, but I had no good 
drying paper, only old newspapers, and it was very cloudy and damp, so 
that most of the flowering plants are spoiled. Could I have made out a 
collection worth anything, 1 would have sent you a set of the specimens. 
The finest palm of these mountains is the Bentinckia Condapana. I 
think it is the most graceful palm in Northern India. It grows chiefly 
in the clefts of precipices and among rocks not easily reached ; but there 
are such forests of it on some slopes that we were kept from starving by 
cutting it down for the cabbage (young shoot), which is delicious. Raw, 
it is like the finest walnut ; but we had it cooked as a vegetable and as a 
curry, when we had nothing else to eat. Its effect in the foreground in 
groups, and even in the distance of the landscape, is very fine. I have 
no book on palms, but I believe it is not found in the Neilgherries, nor do 
I know if it exists in Ceylon. It is found at a height of from 2500 to up- 
wards of 5000 feet at the place where I have been, but I have no doubt 
it would grow at higher stations. I have brought down a few young 
plants to try to make it grow here. We have a museum here, of which 
I am honorary superintendent, and I tried to get up a botanic garden, 
but nothing has been done as yet. This climate is almost exactly that of 
the country of the Victoria regia, and I have a fine tank in which I 
could put it. 
Mr F. Naylor presented specimens of Briza maxima, collected, ap- 
parently in a wild state, in Jersey. 
SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 
BOTANY. 
Report on the Bark and Leaves of Cinchona Succirubra grown in 
India. By J. KE. Howarp, Esq.—In order to make the best analysis of 
the small quantity of bark at my command, I commenced with 500 grains 
of that of the second year’s growth, and was able to obtain therefrom a 
first and second crystallisation of white sulphate of quinine. By thus 
specifying the whiteness, I mean to imply that the bark had not the com- 
mercial disadvantage which frequently attends the ‘‘ red bark” at a more 
mature stage of growth, resulting from the fact that the colouring matter 
has in these last become so much implicated with the alkaloids as to make 
the task of purification a difficult one. The crystallisations I obtained 
were mixed with some sulphate of cinchonidine, which is commercially 
(but not medicinally) a disadvantage, and one which always attends the 
products of ‘‘ red bark.” JI also obtained cinchonine, and other usual 
products, of the process as from South American bark, viz., kinovic acid, 
kinate of lime, gum, cinchona red, &c. The product of alkaloid ina 
rough state was estimated at 4:30 per cent. A second trial of the same 
quantity enabled me to decide more accurately the per-centage product in 
purified alkaloids I found the total contents 3°30 to 3:40 per cent., and 
of this (soluble in ether) quinine and some cinchonidine, 2°40 per cent., 
