224 



[September, 1908. 



DRUGS AND MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



IPECACUANHA. 



A good deal of interest has been from 

 time to time raised by the question of 

 the possibility of the cultivation of the 

 Ipecacuanha plant in this country. The 

 drug is an expensive one and there is a 

 steady demand for it, being as it is, one 

 of the few known remedies for dysentery. 

 For many years it has been cultivated 

 with some success by Mr. W. W. Bailey, 

 formerly at Pengerang Estate, Johor, and 

 later in Highlands and Lowlands estate 

 in Selangor. No one else seems to have 

 been very successful with it in auy part 

 of the world. 



In cultivation it is by no means an easy 

 plant to deal with, and though it has 

 been often tried at the Botanic Gardens, 

 Singapore, it never seems to thrive well, 

 probably on account of the dampness of 

 the Island. I have found it very sensi- 

 tive to rapid changes of weather. In hot 

 dry weather it suffers much from the 

 dryness of the air, and heat and heavy 

 rainstorms are also fatal to it. 



An article on Johor Ipecacuanha has 

 recently been published by Mr. E. M. 

 Holmes in the Pharmaceutical Journal 

 (January 18th, 1908) p. 54, which is of con- 

 siderable interest and from which I 

 quote. " For many 5*ears past Ipeca- 

 cuanha root has been cultivated in the 

 Malay States and imported into this 

 country under the name of Johor Ipeca- 

 cuanha, but the exact form of the plant 

 under cultivation and the particular 

 district in which it is grown are not 

 stated in text books. Some of the Johor 

 root was examined by Mr. F. Ransom 

 and reported to be practically as rich in 

 alkaloid as that received from Brazil. 

 As the attempts to grow Ipecacuanha in 

 India and elsewhere on a commercial 

 scale failed it became a point of some 

 interest to determine the particular form 

 or variety cf the plant that succeeded so 

 well in the Straits Settlements." Speci- 

 mens of the plant were received by Mr. 

 Holmes from Mr. Wray and Mr. Pfenning- 

 werth. Mr. Holmes goes on to point out 

 that two forms of the plant were known 

 in 1871 when Prof. J. M. Balfour, in an 

 article read before the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh, described them as culti- 

 vated in Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. 

 One, originally sent by Mr. Mackay of 

 Liege to Sir W. Hooker, had a shrubby 

 stem, firm leaves not undulated at the 

 edge, with a short style. The other sent 

 from Rio de Janeiro, was herbaceous, 

 with thinner leaves undulated and 



fringed with hairs. The flowers were not 

 seen but were probably long styled. 

 The Selangor plant has firm leaves, 

 oblong lanceolate (rather than oval as in 

 Mackay's plant) slightly scabrous, and 

 the stamens and style equal in length. 

 This plant is therefore distinct from 

 either of the other two. The plants 

 formerly cultivated in the Singapore 

 gardens and obtained from Kew were cer- 

 tainly herbaceous. Ipecacuanha seems 

 to have been first introduced to the 

 Straits Settlements by Murton in 1875. 

 The plants were brought from Ceylon. 

 But whether the Selangor, or called as 

 they were at first, the Johor plants, were 

 derived from these or obtained elsewhere 

 1 cannot say. 



Mr. Pfenningwerth states that the 

 cultivation is very slow work. The plant 

 seems to grow well but does not produce 

 root in abundance. The first crop off 

 f resh soil is a fairly good one but on try- 

 ing to raise a second it invariably turns 

 out very poor, although all kinds of 

 manure have been tried to enrich the 

 land but without apparently restoring 

 to the soil the necessary ingredients for 

 luxuriant growth. He then quotes from 

 Mr. Macnab, as to the growth of the 

 plant. " The stem is of slow growth and 

 although cuttings root freely in five or 

 six weeks when inserted in white sand 

 kept somewhat moist, very few cuttings 

 are obtainable, so that propagation from 

 sections of the rhizome even if only one 

 sixteenth of an inch thick give the best 

 results. These can be readily propa- 

 gated if placed in a horizontal position 

 over the surface of a pot, prepared with 

 drainage and white sand and kept moist 

 and placed in a warm propagating bed 

 under a hand glass. In a few weeks the 

 root cuttings begin to swell, and show 

 signs of budding chiefly on the upper 

 edge of the cut surface. These leaf buds 

 are first nourished by the sap in the cut 

 rhizome, but as they begin to elongate 

 some filmy roots are protruded from the 

 under surface. When this is the case 

 the root sections may be cut into as 

 many pieces as there are buds and each 

 potted separately in open free fibrous 

 soil with a slight mixture of sand. In 

 Brazil the Poayero or collector of Ipeca- 

 cuanha root when he pulls up the roots, 

 breaks them at certain points, leaving 

 sufficient of the thickened rhizome 

 to produce young plants and fills the 

 holes whence the plants have been 

 pulled, so that in 3 or 4 years, the 

 plants may recover their growth. The 



