199 



t [Giorn. Bot. ItaL, vol. ii., p. 56] as P. suavis. Sir William Hooker, 

 who had received a plant of P. suavis, Ten., which flowerd at Kew in 

 1849, described it as P. Patchouli, under the impression that it was 

 in reality identical with the plant described by Pelletier, with 

 whom it had flowered in France in 1844, as P. Patchouli [Mem. Soc. 

 Sc. Orleans, vol. v., p. 277, t. 7] . The identity of P. suavis, Ten., 

 with P. Patchouly, Pellet., was not admitted in the Flora of British 

 India, and in that work it has been suggested that the plant to which 

 Pelletier's description applies is the cultivated plant to which the Indian 

 vernacular name Patchouli belongs, rather than the plant which yields 

 the Patchouli of commerce. Now, however, that better material of 

 the Patchouli plant of commerce has reached Kew from the Philippines, 

 where it is sometimes grown in gardens, and where, as Merrill has 

 recently ascertained, it is oftener wild, and is undoubtedly indigenous, 

 it is found that Sir William Hooker's conclusions are certainly right. 

 His identification of P. suavis, Ten., with P. Patchouli), Pellet., and his 

 treatment of this plant as a quite distinct species, must both be sustained. 



We are, however, fortunately relieved of the necessity of using 

 for the Patchouli of commerce the name P. Patchouly, applied to it by 

 Pelletier. In the Philippines, where the plant is native, it bears the 

 vernacular name Cablan. This name was taken up by Blanco, who 

 described the plant for the first time under the name Mentha Goblin. 

 The plant was duly transferred by Bentham to its proper genus as 

 Pogostemon Cablin. Bentham has thus provided a name for the 

 Patchouli of commerce which has the double advantage of being 

 botanically admissible and at the same time free from ambiguity. 



So far then as Patchouli is concerned one or two points appear still 

 to be obscure. It is not clear where the plant known to the natives 

 of India as Patchouli or Patcha is indigenous, though on the whole it 

 is probably a native of the western portion of the Indian Peninsula, as 

 suggested in the Kew Bulletin for 1888> p. 74. Nor is it clear when 

 the wild Philippine species, which is the source of the Patchouli of 

 commerce, first began to be cultivated, or how this plant should have 

 found its way into the hands of the Chinese immigrants who cultivate 

 it in the Straits Settlements. 



Two adulterants are mentioned by Wray [K. B. 1889, p. 137] as 

 being added to commercial Patchouli. One of these, Perpulut, else- 

 where [K. B. 1888, p. 71] termed Bupulut, is correctly given as Urena 

 lobata, Linn. The other, Ruku, is stated to be Ocimum Basilicum, 

 Linn., var. pilosum, Benth. To some extent this plant does appear to 

 be so employed. But the name Ruku, as a rule, is not applied to 

 0. Basilicum, but to Hijptis graveolens, Poit. In pointing out this 

 minor error in an article so valuable as that of Wray, it has to be 

 added that the mistake is one for which Wray is not responsible, but 

 is the result of imperfect diagnosis of the samples of detached leaves 

 and fruiting calyces of Ruku supplied for identification. 



(Kew Bulletin 1908, No. 2, page 78.) 



(Note on above. Mr. Wray is quite correct in calling Ocimum 

 basilicum, Ruku, or more correctly Ruku-Ruku. The Hijptis Graeo- 

 ens is not called Ruku, but Selasih.) 



H. N. R. 



