308  Rhubarb  and  Rheum  Officinale.  {Amji°yu,r;8P76arm' 
the  description  was  supplemented  by  a  figure  in  the  "  Proceedings  of 
the  Association  Frangaise  pour  l'Avancement  des  Sciences,"  for  1871. 
It  was  also  figured  in  the  "  Botanical  Magazine,"  1874,  t.  6135. 
In  the  summer  of  1874  the  author  received  roots  from  the  late  Mr. 
Daniel  Hanbury,  and  in  1875  the  plant  flowered  for  the  first  time  in 
Germany  in  the  garden  of  the  Pharmaceutisches  Institut  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Strassburg,  forming  a  stately,  elegant  plant.  The  flower 
stalk  reached  its  full  height  about  the  25th  of  May,  when  the  flower,, 
which  was  at  first  almost  horizontally  drooping,  appeared.  The  flower 
opened  on  the  27th  of  May,  and  on  the  9th  of  June  it  stood  upright,, 
and  was  in  full  bloom.  In  this  case  it  was  not,  however,  as  described 
by  Baillon,  "  pallide  virescens,"  but  white.  Fruit  had  appeared  on  the 
20th  of  June,  and  by  the  26th  the  flowering  had  nearly  ended  and  the 
stalk  had  attained  its  greatest  height,  i\  metres.  Most  of  the  fruit  was- 
ripe  on  the  20th  of  July,  but  the  quantity  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  flowers  was  small.  Professor  Fllickiger  says  the  flower  and  fruit  of 
Rheum  officinale  present  no  characters  which  distinguish  it  from  other 
species  of  Rheum. 
At  the  author's  request,  Mr.  Hanbury  also  distributed  the  Rheum 
officinale  to  Messrs.  Rufus  Usher  &  Sons,  the  owners  of  the  large  rhu- 
barb plantations  at  Bodicott,  in  Oxfordshire,  the  rhubarb  cultivated 
there  being  probably  R.  Rhaponticum.  Professor  Fllickiger  has  now 
had  an  opportunity  of  comparing  a  root  of  R.  officinale  grown  by  him- 
self with  one  of  the  gardens  of  the  Paris  School  of  Pharmacy,  supplied 
by  Professor  Planchon,  and  one  obtained  by  Messrs.  Usher  &  Sons,, 
and  treated  and  dried  in  the  same  way  as  their  rhubarb  for  the  market 
is  usually  prepared.  After  this  comparison,  Professor  Fluckiger  is 
able  to  say  that  the  root  of  R.  officinale  undoubtedly  bears  the  characters 
of  true  Chinese  rhubarb,  and  he  thinks  that  with  suitable  treatment  it 
would  yield  a  product  identical  in  external  appearance. 
The  first  epidermis  of  the  subterranean  portion  of  R.  officinale  is  re- 
markable for  a  very  bright  brown-red  color  ;  the  roots  of  other  species,, 
at  any  rate  those  of  R.  Rhaponticum  and  R.  Emodi,  are  only  yellowish 
or  yellow-brown.  But  what  still  more  distinguishes  R.  officinale  is  the 
strong  development  of  the  root-stock,  a  large  part  of  which  occasion- 
ally projects  conically  from  the  ground,  and  is  provided  with  not  very 
numerous  secondary  roots  of  the  thickness  of  a  finger.  Only  the  root- 
stock  approaches  the  marbled  structure  of  the  true  rhubarb;  the  sec- 
