Am.  Joor.  Pharm.  ) 
JVIar.,  1874.  Suppl.  / 
Rheum  Officinale. 
155 
merce  both  the  Russian  and  Chinese  rhubarbs,  it  has  only  been 
known  since  1867,  in  which  year  M.  Dabry  de  Thiersant,  consul- 
general  of  France  at  Shanghai,  procured  from  Thibet  some  stalks  of 
the  species  which  yields  this  valuable  drug,  and  which,  cultivated  in 
the  garden  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  at  Paris  and  in  the  Vallee  de 
Montmorency  by  M.  Girandeau,  have  received  from  M.  H.  Baillon 
the  name  of  Rheum  officinale.  It  is  a  very  large  species,  exceeding 
a  man  in  height,  and  remarkable  for  the  considerable  development  of 
its  inflorescence.  The  flowers  are  whitish,  having  a  very  deeply  con- 
cave receptacle,  with  a  marked  perigynic  insertion  of  the  stamens, 
which  in  other  respects  resemble  those  of  all  the  genus  Rheum.  The 
gynaecium  is  inserted  profoundly  in  the  most  depressed  portion  of  the 
receptacular  cavity,  and  the  edges  of  this  cavity  are  furnished  with 
well-developed  unequal  glands  of  a  beautiful  green  color  at  their  sum- 
mit. The  leaves  of  this  species  answer  perfectly  to  the  indications 
formerly  given  by  Bokharian  and  Chinese  merchants  to  Pallas  and 
others  concerning  the  true  officinal  rhubarb  plant,  namely,  that  the 
leaves  have  a  limb  of  a  delicate  green  color,  in  shape  like  an  open 
fan,  and  also  as  analogous  as  possible  to  that  of  the  leaves  of  the  Ri- 
einus  communis.  It  is  by  this  that  the  species  is  especially  distin- 
guished from  R.  palmatum,  to  which  more  than  any  other  the  origin 
of  this  medicament  has  been  referred  in  recent  times,  upon  the 
authority  of  Guibourt.  But  the  leaves  of  the  latter  are  whitish,  un- 
equally trilobed,  and  more  or  less  pointed  at  the  top.  The  R.  offici- 
nale, however,  belongs  to  the  same  botanical  section  as  R.  palmatum, 
as  well  as  R.  hybridum  and  R.  dentatum,  which  are  different  plants, 
but  have  the  same  nervation.  Here  the  nerves  diverge  at  starting 
from  the  base  of  the  limb,  they  are  then  palmate,  and  the  two  lateral 
nerves  are  destitute  on  the  outside,  for  a  certain  distance  from  their 
base,  of  all  parenchyma.  Above  this  point  the  base  of  the  parenchy- 
ma forms  a  kind  of  auricle,  which  renders  the  limb  markedly  cordate 
at  the  base.  The  dimensions  of  the  limb  extend  to  nearly  a  metre 
in  each  direction  ;  it  is,  however,  a  little  broader  than  it  is  long,  and 
the  petiole  is  about  the  same  length.  In  the  plants  that  have  been 
raised,  some  leaves  have  been  noticed  which  were  more  than  a  metre 
and  a  half  long.  Their  edges  are  unequally  divided  into  triangular 
lobes  a  little  unequal  among  themselves,  and  the  nerves,  ramified  and 
prominent  beneath,  are  in  this  species,  together  with  all  the  surface 
of  the  parenchyma,  entirely  covered  with  a  fine  white  down.  When 
