45 
CHINESE ANTI-OPIUM DRUGS. 
The sentiment against the habit of Opium smoking having 
attained considerable proportions, there has been no small interest 
aroused in drugs stated to be very effective in curing the opium- 
craving in constant users of the drug. Specimens of two plants have 
been lately submitted to me for identification which plants are said 
to be of the greatest value in combatting the opium craving. As is 
commonly the case when amateurs send specimens for identification 
the samples were extremely poor and of the Kuala Lumpur one I 
received five or six examples o* fragments of sticks or roots and 
more or less damaged leaves, no flowers or fruits or even a complete 
spray of leaves, nor any information as to the appearance of the 
habits of the plants. It gives but little extra trouble to send really 
identifiable specimens, but it may as it did on the present occasion 
take many hours to identify scraps even if they are possible for any 
man to identify them. 
However, Mr. J. B. CarRUTHERS, has since identified this species 
and his note is appended to this. 
The first plant received is a herb from China belonging to the 
order Composites, about two or three feet tall with rather narrow 
lobed leaves and yellow flowers and the general appearance of a 
sow thistle. It is apparently a species of Gynura, and I canilot 
distinguish it from Gynura ovaiis, Dec. the G. pseudo-china of the 
Flora of Hongkong. 
There are a number of species of this set of Gynuras described 
from the east, and all arq very closely allied if indeed they are 
distinct. One of these G. pseudo-china , possesses tuberous roots which 
are said to be used medicinally. This is a native of Madras and 
said to grow too in Canton. It seems tp differ fr^m the plant sent 
from China in the stem being scapigeroub with radical leaves. The 
Chinese plant which 1 take to be G. ovaiis, is very closely allied to a 
common weed here which has been identified in the Materials for a 
Flora of the Malay peninsula as G. bicolor , though it does not 
resemble the plant figured iil th,e Botanical Register figure I io. 
The chief difference between the Chinese opium-antidote and the 
common weed h^re is that in the former the achenes are more 
distinctly hairy. No plant of the common weed here that I have 
seen has bulbous roots and the Chinese one is said to have thick 
bulbous roots. 
Further information is much wanted cn this plant. It may well 
prove that the common weed'here is actually the plant required by 
the Chinese. 
The Kuala Lumpur plant or plants have, it appears, got a much 
higher reputation. According to the Malay Mail many of the 
Chinese there have been seen going into the jungles with kandar 
sticks to collect the leaves. The price of the leaves went up to four 
dollars a pikul, and tied up in bundles, dried, they have been ex- 
ported to China whence a bundle has been received from Mr. Dunn 
