THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 13 
tion and uses, occupying no less than fifteen highly illustra¬ 
tive and artistic woodcuts in the delineation of its structure 
and the different forms met with in the market. The learned 
doctor describes no less than eight species, which we may 
shortly refer to in the following order : 
1. Smilax officinalis , from Columbia and Guatemala. 
2. S. medica , Mexico. 
3. S. papyracea , Brazilian (also called Maranham, Para, 
or Lisbon) sarzae. 
4. S. sarsaparilla , United States of America. 
5. S. syphilitica , New Granada. 
6. S. cordato-ovato, probably not distinct from (5). 
7. S. perhampy , Peru. Dr. Lindley thinks this identical 
with S. officinalis. 
8. S. obliquata , Peruvian sarsaparilla of commerce. 
Now, it is more than probable that these eight names do 
not really refer to distinct species; at the same time we must 
bear in mind that Professor Lindley, in his ‘Vegetable 
Kingdom 5 states that the natural order Smilacece, including 
only the two genera Smilax and Ripogonum , includes no less 
than one hundred and twenty species, but it is more than 
probable that many synonyms have crept into the list; still, 
the perseverance with which every form of the genus Smilax 
has been canvassed can hardly he other than highly signifi¬ 
cant of the high esteem in which it has been held, or at least 
of the commercial importance of the matter. 
Beck, in his e United States Botany, 5 describes no less 
than eight species of Smilax—green briar; but he gives no 
account of their medical uses, though we know that sarza is 
much used in the States, and we import thence as many as 
twenty thousand pounds of the root annually. 
In discussing the value of sarsaparilla we confess to no 
little difficulty in arriving at satisfactory conclusions, and 
especially when such an authority as Pereira t says of it— 
“ The relative therapeutical values of the different sorts of 
sarsaparilla are not easily determined. There are only two 
ways by which we can attempt to arrive at them—one chemi¬ 
cal, the other clinical or empirical; but while, on the one hand, 
we have neither comparative analyses of the various commer¬ 
cial sorts of this root, nor an accurate knowledge of its active 
principle, so, on the other we have no clinical observations 
of the relative effects of the different sorts, and great diffi¬ 
culty exists in the way of making them, on account of the 
immediate and obvious effects of this root being very slight. 
To this absence of actual precise information must be ascribed 
