199 
t [Giorn. Bot. Ital., vol. ii., p. 56] as P. suavis. Sir William Hooker, 
who had received a plant of P. suavis, Ten., which flowerd at Kew in 
1849, described it as P. Patchouli, under the impression that it was 
in reality identical with the plant described by Pelletier, with 
whom it had flowered in France in 1844, as P. Patchouli [Mem. Soc. 
Sc. Orleans, vol. v., p. 277, t. 7] . The identity of P. suavis, Ten., 
with P. Patchouly, Pellet., was not admitted in the Flora of British 
India, and in that work it has been suggested that the plant to which 
Pelletier’s description applies is the cultivated plant to which the Indian 
vernacular name Patchouli belongs, rather than the plant which yields 
the Patchouli of commerce. Now, however, that better material of 
the Patchouli plant of commerce has reached Kew from the Philippines, 
where it is sometimes grown in gardens, and where, as Merrill has 
recently ascertained, it is oftener wild, and is undoubtedly indigenous, 
it is found that Sir William Hooker’s conclusions are certainly right. 
His identification of P. suavis, Ten., with P. Patchouly, Pellet., and his 
treatment of this plant as a quite distinct species, must both be sustained. 
We are, however, fortunately relieved of the necessity of using 
for the Patchouli of commerce the name P. Patchouly, applied to it by 
Pelletier. In the Philippines, where the plant is native, it bears the 
vernacular name Cahlan. This name was taken up by Blanco, who 
described the plant for the first time under the name Mentha Gablin. 
The plant was duly transferred by Bentham to its proper genus as 
Pogostemon Cablin. Bentham has thus provided a name for the 
Patchouli of commerce which has the double advantage of being 
botanically admissible and at the same time free from ambiguity. 
So far then as Patchouli is concerned one or two points appear still 
to be obscure. It is not clear where the plant known to the natives 
of India as Patchouli or Patella is indigenous, though on the whole it 
is probably a native of the western portion of the Indian Peninsula, as 
suggested in the Kew Bulletin for 1888, p. 74. Nor is it clear when 
the wild Philippine species, which is the source of the Patchouli of 
commerce, first began to be cultivated, or how this plant should have 
found its way into the hands of the Chinese immigrants who cultivate 
it in the Straits Settlements. 
Two adulterants are mentioned by Wray [K. B. 1889, p. 137] as 
being added to commercial Patchouli. One of these, Perpulut, else- 
where [K. B. 1888, p. 71] termed Bupulut, is correctly given as Urena 
lobata, Hun . The other, Ruku, is stated to be Ocimurn Basilicum, 
Hun., var. pilosum, Benth. To some extent this plant does appear to 
be so employed. But the name Ruku, as a rule, is not applied to 
O. Basilicum, but to Hyptis graveolens, Poit. In pointing out this 
minor error in an article so valuable as that of Wray, it has to be 
added that the mistake is one for which Wray is not responsible, but 
is the result of imperfect diagnosis of the samples of detached leaves 
and fruiting calyces of Ruku supplied for identification. 
(Kew Bulletin 1908, No. 2, page 78.) 
(Note on above. Mr. Wray is quite correct in calling Ocimurn 
basilicum, Ruku, or more correctly Ruku-Ruku. The Hyptis Graeo- 
ens is- not called Ruku, but Selasih.) 
H, N. R. 
