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THE TROPICAL 
AGEICQLTURIST. [May 1, 1908. 
BBSOoiatiou ^ith Mooha, and in epite of its being 
named Ccfea arahica, ihat the plant is a native of the 
African tiue of the Eed Sea, aua is only an iatioduced 
plant in Aiabiy. L)e Cauaoile is iherefoie {Origin of 
Cultivated tlauts) inclined to think that probably 
the two plants, Qat and Coffee, were introduced 
together from Abyssinia ; and Boisser, who made a 
study of the plants of this region to a great extent 
the work of his hfe, clearly did not accept Qat as 
a native of Arabia, because he does not include 
the speciea in his celebrated llora Orientalis. 
Hochstetter in Flora, for 3841, says that in Abys- 
sina an infusion just like Tea is made from the leaves ; 
but a correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle, for 
1843, writing from Yaush in Sho», November 1842, 
Bays very detiuitely that the Abyssinians only use 
it in building their houses mostly struccures of wattle 
and daub, tor which the thin stems and branches 
of this shrub must be very well adapted. No otber 
use, this writer tajs, is made of the plant except by 
the Musalmau mei chants, who chew the leaves in order 
to prevent sleep. These meichanis, he adds, have trans- 
ported the plant iu;o tbe country of the Yeojon Gallas, 
where it la largely grown, Out is nevertheless not 
used as an article of trade. In Arabia on the 
contrary (jJVeasuri/ of Botany) Qat forms a consider- 
able article of cou<merce, large quantities, of twigs 
being annually brought to Aden from tbe interior 
of the Peninsula ; some of these, according to Watt, 
■ even reach Bombay, For export the twigs are made 
up into compact bundles, varying in size according 
to quality ; ihe best kind comes in bundles, 12-15 
inches long by 3 inches wide, consisting of about 
40 twigs neatly bound together by strips of fibrous 
bark or tighily packed in palm-leaves. A thousand 
camel-loaas of these bundles, according to the Gar- 
deners' Chronicle for 1890, reach Aden every year. 
The plant seems, as a matter of fact, to be used 
chiefly as a siiurulaut and a food-accessory, just as 
Cofiee, Tea, Mate, and Coca are. Of the tour, Qat 
appears most to resemble Coca in its effects. It 
enables the user, so it is said, to undergo prolonged 
muscular exertion without fatigue or to sustain hunger 
without inconvenience. Xhe use of the leaves which 
besides being chewed like those of Coca, fresh or 
dried, are also infused like Tea, induces a feeling of 
exhilaration and excites cheerfulness of spirits ; for 
this reason> according to Botta, and to Dtflers, the 
leaves are liberally distributed at religious rites, 
domestic festivities, and visits of ceremony ; Botta 
speaks of one sheik, obliged to receive many callers 
who had to spend, on Qat alone, as mmch as 100 
franca a day 1 The freeh leases, which taste 
to the writer's mind, very like the leaves of Coca 
are said by Botta to be sometimes very intoxicating; 
the writer cannot corroborate this from his own- 
experience. Ills true that Botta credits this quality 
to tbe leaves of wild plants. In the Gardeners' 
Choromcle for 1843, a woodout is given of a twig, 
said 10 De from a specimen gathered by Bovd. This 
wooocut IS used again by Lindley in his Vegetable 
Kingdom; it will be referred to critically below. In 
connection with this drawing it is remarked that 
leaves gathered when the plant is three years old are 
Bold as Qat mubarreh or " inferior ; " a year later 
young shoots are gathered and fetch a higher price. 
The Abyssinian correspondent also refers to two 
Varieties, but in a somewhat different way ; he calls 
(hem the '"red" and the "while," distioguished by the 
colour of the wood and y^-uug leaves, and (though 
Of this he IS not quite certain) the flowers also. To 
this question of different kinds, too, further reference 
Will be made. 
W hen H lu a plant of economic importance that is 
under ulbcussiou, the writer a experience commoiily 
is iiiat thcie la some coiitUaicn as rtgarda its uairi'j ; 
Qat is no exception to this luie. The name usually 
given 10 the plant is Catha edulis; the authority quoted 
IB Forbkael, Flor. Aeyypt. Arab. p. 63 fl775-). The 
tiraC writer to make tnis citation is Symbol. 
i. p. ai (17'J0;, who himself uamed the plant Getastrus 
edulis,_ The citation can only be explained aa a lapu^i 
calami, btoause ia the place quoted For=kael does 
not use the name Catha edulis. He describtd the 
plant rather more carefully than most subsequent 
writers have done, but omitted to nwae it ; so far 
as the writer can ascertain, Forskael never did publish 
a name for the species. Vahl's inexact citation has, 
however, been usually accepted as accurate, but it 
is not clear if Caihc, edulis be the true name of 
the plant. It certainly is not on Porskael's authority 
that it can be taken up if it be the true name. This 
is, however, a trifling matter. More important ia the 
question as to the arrangement of its leaves and 
branches. 
Porskael's account, which ia rather more careful 
than some subsequent ones, states.—" Branches al- 
ternate, axillary ; branchlets green, annual articulate ; 
leaves opposite, on the large branches alternate." 
Vahl, copying from ForskaeJ, but varying the ex. 
pressions, says .-—"Branches alternate; branchlets 
articulate, alternate; leaves alternate, on the brauoh- 
lets opposite." Don \Gen. Sysl. Gard. 1832) says britfly: 
—"Leaves opposite and alternate." Hochstetter 
Flora, 1841) says —Leaves opposite." Lindley's figure 
iu the Gardeners' Chronicle for 1843 and in his Vegea 
table Kingdom (1853) shows a pair of opposite leave- 
luith flowers in their axils, at the base of the twig and 
two alternate leaves without flowers above. The Genera 
Plantarum (1862), apparently following Hochstetter 
says !—'' Leaves opposite." The Treasury of Botany 
(1866) says : — " Leaves opposite on some branches and 
alternate on otheis ;" Oliver {Flor. Trop. Afr., 1868) 
says : — ■' Leaves opposite ; or alternate on the leafy 
shoots," In the Bistoire des planies ('1875) Baillon says : 
— Leaves usually opposite." Finally Loosener, the 
last important author who has dealt with Qat, says 
{Engler's Naturlich-FAanzenfam, 1896) :— "Leaves op- 
posite on fertile twigs, often alternate on the sterile," 
Forskael's account is thus the fullest, and it may be 
added is also the most accurate on the point ; that 
even it is not clear we can see from the indecision 
and the discrepancies of sub.sequent writers. It may 
therefore net be superfluous to explain exactly what 
does happen and what the conditions, as exhibited 
by plants that the writer has watched for eleven 
years, retiUy are. 
In 1892 some twigs were sent from Hodeida for 
identification ; they were specimens of a kind very 
familiar to the Editor of Indian Planting and Gardening 
and to the writer, for they had neither flowers nor 
fruits, and had been pUccd in a letter without 
having been previously dried. They reached their 
destination a mass of pulp so far as the leaves were 
concerned, but as there seemed to be some vitality 
in the twigs, an attempt was made to strike them 
as cuttings. Of the twigs that had, as their leaf- 
scars showed, borne opposite leaves none survived; 
of those that had borne alternate leaves a fair pro- 
portion held. In, as was then supposed, tthongh now 
It is clear this was not exactly what happened, the 
axils of these leaves small buds broke and gave rise 
to nearly vertical shoots with red bark and alter- 
nate leaves. These shoots gave the plant a fastigiate 
character ; they increased iu length for two aeasons, 
retaining nearly all their leaves bat not branching. In 
their third season the axils of the lowest leaves, corre- 
sponding to the first season's growth, gave origin to 
branchlets quite different in appearance from the 
branchea produced by the original cutting. Instead 
of growing faatigiately these branchlets spread hori< 
zontally ; instead of having alternate they had opposite 
leaves, slightly smaller and distinctly more ouneate 
at the base than the oihers, with moreover only a 
faintly red petiole and base of mid-rib, whereas the 
alternate leaves had red petioles, mid ribs red through- 
out, and reddish secondary nerves beneath. The 
following season the set of leaves corresponding to 
the next succeeding season of growth in turn gave out 
more horizontal opposite-leaved branchlets, while the 
iiorizontal brauchlete of the preceding season increased 
