36 ON THE MALAMBO BARK OF CARTHAGENA. 
seek for further information in the faded records of past 
correspondence. 
Had such a body as the Pharmaceutical Society been co- 
existent with the facilities for foreign and colonial corres- 
pondence which I then enjoyed, and of which I fully avail- 
ed myself for the service of the public, the mystery which 
to the present moment involves the tree yielding this valua- 
ble bark would most probably have been long since cleared 
up, and botanists would not only be familiar with the cha- 
racters of the inflorescence and fructification, but our Materia 
Medica might have been enriched by an elegant, agreeable 
and active tonic. 
From the accounts given by the Spanish writers, Don 
Jorge Lopez and Don Ignacio de Pombo, the friend and 
companion of the lamented Mutis,in the extracts just given 
from their respective works, we learn that the Malambo 
is a tree of common occurrence in the forests of Santa Mar- 
tha and Carthagena, and may no doubt be found through- 
out the whole of the littoral chain which stretches from 
Punta Paria, in the east, to the Gulph of Maracaybo, and 
thence westward through the provinces of Santa Martha 
and Carthagena to the Gulph of Darien ; and as the Flora 
of Trinidad is but an extension of that of the continent, it is 
by no means improbable that the Malambo is also a deni- 
zen of those unexplored forests which wave in perennial 
verdure beneath the British flag. It were, therefore, much 
to be desired that some of our merchants residing at Santa 
Martha or Carthagena, the localities clearly indicated in the 
foregoing extracts, could be induced to procure well authen- 
ticated specimens of the bark, seeds, fructification, and in- 
florescence of the tree so highly spoken of by the writers 
already named, and transmit them for examination to the 
Pharmaceutical Society, the legitimate body for conducting 
such inquiries. The botanical characters being once clearly 
determined, it would be comparatively easy to ascertain its 
existence in the forests of Trinidad ; or, if its value were 
