THE " CEDAR OF GOA." 



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follow that it originally grew there. It may, for instance, have 

 come from China, where the Portuguese established themselves 

 (at Macao) in 1557, There is in the Kew collection a coloured 

 drawing apparently representing this species, and with a legend 

 in Chinese characters. The drawing was originally in the 

 possession of the East India Company. 



By calling attention to the deficiencies in our knowledge as 

 to the history and source of this tree, a chance is afforded of 

 obtaining the desired information hereafter. With this object, 

 I have thrown together the following notes, which give the 

 principal facts in the history of the tree as known up to the 

 present time. 



According to Henriques,* the earliest mention of the tree is 

 in a poem by D. Berardo Ferreira de Lacerda in his " Solidades 

 de Bussaco," published in 1634. It is worthy of note that in 

 this the earliest notice the tree is spoken of as " Cypres," and 

 the trees must even then have been of considerable size to have 

 attracted the attention of the poet. At what time the tree first 

 became known as " Cedro de Goa " is not stated, but the epithet, 

 must be taken as indicative of the established belief of its intro- 

 duction into Portugal from Goa. 



It has also been surmised that the tree may have been a 

 native of the Azore Islands, and thence introduced into Portugal ;. 

 but there is little or no evidence in support of this conjecture- 

 In the Kew Museum is a thick slab of wood, about 21 inches in 

 diameter, labelled thus : " Cupressus sempervirens glauca, from 

 St. Michael's, Azores, and said to have been dug up from a 

 depth of 100 metres below the surface of the ground. This tree, 

 the C. glauca of Lamarck [i.e. the Cedar of Goa], is said to 

 have been introduced into the Azores from the East Indies. 

 There is, however, no Cupressus indigenous there [?], nor yet in 

 the Azores at the present time." The slab was presented by 

 Dr. Goeze, now Curator of the Botanic Garden, Greifswald, to 

 whom, accordingly, I applied for further information, which he 

 obligingly communicated in the following letter : — 



" In 1866 I first went to Portugal, to take charge of the Botanica 

 Garden in Coimbra. Shortly after my arrival there the University 

 authorities sent me to the island of St. Michael's in order to acquire 



* Boletim da Sociedade Broteriana, 1884. See summary by Professor 

 Wilkomm in the Garten Flora, March 1890, p. 98. 



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