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ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
ART. IV. —NOTE UPON GENTiANA CHIRAYITA. 
To the extensive and well known family of Gentianese, be- 
long numerous species which are valuable for their medicinal 
qualities. Although closely resembling each other in botani- 
cal characters, they are equally remarkable for the similarity 
of property, connected with their bitterness, which univer- 
sally pervades them, and which, with few exceptions, permits 
the substitution of one for another, when employed as medi- 
cines. In the Flora of every explored region of the earth, 
are found one or more individuals which have been ascertain- 
ed to possess the qualities of the class in an eminent degree, 
and on this account have been selected to occupy a place in 
the list of the Materia Medica peculiar to that region. The 
species under consideration is a native of India, whence it has 
been brought to Europe, and, within a few years, has attract- 
ed some attention. The information we possess of its history 
and virtues is derived from several sources; upon these we 
draw for the remarks to be presented to our readers. 
The following are the names given to it by different 
authors: 
Gentiana chirayita. — Roxb. Hor. Corom. and Jlsiat, 
Researches. 
Henricea pharmacearcha. — Lem. Lis. Bui. Soc. Philom. 
Swertia chirayita. — Hamilton. 
Description. — This plant is herbaceous, two or three feet 
high, branched; the stems are woody, as thick as straws, 
round, smooth, and jointed, containing a large medullary ca- 
nal, of a yellow color; the leaves are amplexicaul, lanceolate, 
acute, entire, smooth, and three or five-veined; the flowers are 
yellow, in terminal spikes; the corolla is five-parted. 
It has no odor, and the taste is very bitter. In the Lin- 
nsean arrangement it belongs to the class Pentandria, order 
Digynia. 
Chirayita is found upon the Coromandel coast of the Pe- 
ninsula, and in the district of Nepal. 
