MEDICINAL PLANTS 
218 
or from ilie equator to the 10th degree of north latitude 
between the meridians of 54 and 71 degrees, the cinchona 
absolutely docs not exist. How can we be expected to know 
completely the flora of so vast an extent of country ? But, 
when we recollect, that even in Mexico no species of the 
genera cinchona and exostema has been discovered, either 
in the central table-land or in the plains, we are led to be- 
lieve, that the mountainous islands of the "West Indies and 
the Cordillera of the Andes have peculiar floras ; and that 
they possess particular species oi vegetation, which have 
neither passed from the islands to the continent, nor from 
South America to the coasts of New Spain. 
It may be observed farther, that, when we reflect on the 
numerous analogies which exist between the properties of 
plants and their external forms, we are surprised to find 
qualities eminently febrifuge in the bark of trees belonging 
to different genera, and even different families.* Some of 
* It may be somewhat interesting to chemistry, physiology, and 
descriptive botany, to consider under the same point of view the plants 
which have been employed in intermittent fevers with different degrees of 
success. We find among rubiaceous plants, besides the cinchonas and 
exostemas, the Coutarea speciosa or Cayenne bark, the Portlandia grandi- 
flora of the West Indies, another portlandia discovered by M. Sesse at 
Mexico, the Pinkneia pnbescens of the United States, the berry of the 
coffee-tree, and perhaps the Macrocnemum corymbosum, and the Guet- 
tarda coccinea ; among magnoliaceous plants, the tulip-tree and the Mag- 
nolia glauca ; among zanthoxylaceous plants, the Cuspare of Angostura, 
known in America under the name of Orinoco bark, and the Zanthoxylon 
caribseum ; among leguminous plants, the geoffrseas, the Swietenia febri- 
fuga, the zEschynomene grandiflora, the Caesalpinea bonducella; among 
caprifoliaceous plants, the Cornus florida and the Cuspa of Cumana; among 
rosaceous plants, the Cerasus virginiana and the Geum urbanum ; among 
amentaceous plants, the willows, oaks, and birch-trees, of which the alco- 
holic tincture is used in Russia by the common people ; the Populu* tremu- 
loides, &c. ; among anonaceous plants, the Uvaria febrifuga, the fruit of 
which we saw administered with success in the Missions of Spanish 
Guiana; among simarubaceous plants, the Quassia amara, celebrated in 
the feverish plains of Surinam ; among terebinthaceous plants, the Rhus 
glabrum ; among euphorbiaceous plants, the Croton cascarilla ; among 
composite plants, the Eupatorium perfoliatum, the febrifuge qualities of 
which are known to the savages of North America. Of the tulip-tree and 
the quassia, it is the bark of the roots that is used. Eminent febrifuge 
virtue have also been found in the cortical part of the roots of the Cinchona 
tondaminea at Eoxa; but it is fortunate, for the preservation of the species. 
