Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1893. 
Daphnidium  Cubeba. 
303 
As  these  experiments  are  not  completed,  and  as  the  determination 
of  the  proportion  of  extract  afford  a  more  certain  basis  than  the 
indices  of  refraction  which  do  not  differ  very  widely  among  them- 
selves, we  must  refer  to  the  original. — Pharm.  Zeit.  Russland's; 
•Chem.  News,  April  28,  1893. 
DAPHNIDIUM  CUBEBA,  NEBS. 
By  E.  M.  Holmes,  F.L.S. 
Curator  of  the  Museum  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain. 
Some  degree  of  uncertainty  has  hitherto  been  attached  to  the 
plant  yielding  the  false  cubebs,  referred  by  most  authorities  on 
materia  medica  to  Daphnidium  Cubeba.  This  name  was  given  by 
Nees  van  Esenbeck  ("Syst.  Laurinearum,"  p.  615)  to  a  plant  culti- 
vated in  Cochin  China,  and  described  by  Loureiro  ("  Flora  Cochin- 
chinensis,"  I,  p.  307,  No.  7)  under  the  name  of  Laurus  Cubeba.  The 
plant  does  not,  however,  appear  to  have  been  seen  by  Nees,  who 
simply  quotes  Loureiro's  description.  Hanbury,  in  his  "Notes  on 
Chinese  Materia  Medica,"  {Pharm.  Journ.  [2],  vol.  iii,  p.  206)  gives 
an  illustration  of  the  fruit,  taking  as  his  guide  for  adopting  the  name 
of  Daphnidium  Cubeba,  the  known  laurineous  structure  of  the  fruits 
and  their  likeness  to  cubebs,  but  stating  that  the  plant  was  unknown 
to  modern  botanists.  Subsequently,  Dr.  F.  Porter  Smith1  followed 
Hanbury's  identification.  That  some  doubt  existed  in  the  minds  of 
the  authors  of  "  Pharmacographia"  on  this  identification  is,  however, 
evident  from  the  remark  in  the  second  edition  of  that  work,  **  In  the 
south  of  China  the  fruits  of  the  Laurus  Cubeba,  of  Loureiro,  have 
frequently  been  mistaken  for  cubebs.  The  tree  which  affords  them 
is  unknown  to  modern  botanists.  Meissner  refers  it  doubtfully  to 
the  genus  Tetranthera."  In  De  Candolle's  "  Prodromus  "  (vol.  xv, 
pt.  I,  p.  199),  Meissner  remarks  concerning  Daphnidium  Cubeba, 
.Nees,  "  Antherae  4,  locellatse  (hinc  certe  non  Daphnidii  generis)." 
By  Bentham  and  Hooker,  f.  ("  Gen.  Plant."  vol.  iii,  p.  101)  the  genus 
Tetranthera  is  sunk  under  Litsea,  therefore  the  present  name  of 
Laurus  Cubeba  should  be  Litsea  Cubeba,  Benth.  and  Hook.  f. 
A  surer  and  somewhat  more  exact  means  of  identifying  the  fruits 
with  the  plant  yielding  them  has  recently  come  into  my  hands 
through  the  kindness  of  our  corresponding  member,  Professor  van 
1  "Chinese  Materia  Medica,"  pp.  79,  83. 
