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in London. The seeds were first introduced into Great Britain in If 02 by 
Dr. Mounsey, who first sent them from Russia;* and these seeds were quickly 
dispersed over the island. At the same time that Dr. Hope cultivated them 
at Edinburgh, Professor Martyn raised abundance of the plants in the botanic 
garden at Cambridge, from Dr. Mounsey’s seeds, which all produced the 
R. palmatum ; and I have some of the Doctor’s original packet still by me. 
It appears that the seeds sent from St. Petersburgh to this country almost 
uniformly and constantly produce the R. palmatum , and not sometimes R. 
undulatum also, as De Gorter relates the seeds to have done which Boer- 
haave obtained from the Tartarian merchant. This however does not prove 
that other species, as the undulatum, and even the compactum, the thick- 
leaved Rhubarb, do not yield the true Rhubarb, as well as the palmatum . 
We have seen that the undulatum was sent from Tartary with the palmatum , 
for the genuine plant; and Georgi relates that a Cossack pointed out the same 
species to him for the true Rhubarb. Both he and Pallas remark, that pos¬ 
sibly the root of R. undulatum may be better on the more southern open and 
dry mountains of Tibet, than on the colder wet mountains of Siberia. Pro¬ 
fessor Pallas relates that in Bukharia the R. palmatum seems to be unknown, 
and that as far as he could collect from description, the species they consider 
there as the true one is the compactum ; the seeds of which, Mr. Miller in¬ 
forms us, were sent to him from St. Petersburgh as the true Tartarian Rhu¬ 
barb. 
Since the true Russian Rhubarb was introduced by Dr. Mounsey in the 
year 1/02, or soon after, and was cultivated by Sir Alexander Dick and Dr. 
Hope of Edinburgh, with a view to bring it into use as a medicine, it has 
been a question whether the root could attain the same qualities in our cli¬ 
mate, that it has where it is a native. That Britain is not too cold for it ap¬ 
pears clearly from the success with which it has been cultivated in Scotland; 
if it meets with any difficulty here, it must be from the moisture of our 
climate, and there can be no doubt but that a dry soil should be chosen for 
ih The chief obstruction to giving the root here a quality equal to foreign 
Rhubaib, appears to be the difficulty of curing it properly; but this is in a 
great measure got over, and no doubt will be fully conquered by farther 
experience, if encouragement should be given to the more extensive cultiva¬ 
tion at home of this most useful plant. 
* Woodville. 
