538 
ON  RHATANY  ROOT. 
As  the  port  of  Savanilla  (12°. 2)  is  in  New  Granada,  at  the 
mouth  of  one  of  the  lateral  branches  of  the  river  Magdalena, 
which  flows  into  the  Caribbean  Sea,  it  is  situated  in  a  part  of 
America  where  Krameria  triandra  has  not  yet  been  found.  This 
circumstance  justified  the  supposition  that  the  Savanilla  Rhatany 
might  be  derived  from  another  species  ;  a  supposition  which,  after 
a  careful  comparative  examination  of  a  quantity  of  180  lbs.  of 
this  drug,  I  am  warranted  in  saying  has  become  a- certainty.* 
Both  kinds  of  Rhatany,  namely  that  from  the  ports  of  Peru 
and  that  from  Savanilla,  have  hitherto  been  exported  in  serons 
of  180  to  200  lbs. 
For  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  shall  designate  the  Peruvian  root 
Payta  Rhatany,  a  name  under  which  it  figures  in  the  English 
*  With  regard  to  the  botanical  distribution  of  the  genus  Krameria,  we  find 
in  Asa  Gray's  Genera  of  the  Plants  of  the  United  States,  ii.  225,  some  short  remarks 
under  the  head  of  Kr.  lanceolata,  Torrey.    As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  gather, 
there  are  at  present  fourteen  well-determined  species  of  this  genus,  viz  : — 
5  from  Brazil    .    .    .    Kr.  glabra,  Spreng.    New  Fntal.,  2,  p.  157, 
<(  grandiflora,  A.  St.  Hil.    Flor.  Bras,  merid., 
tom.ii  p.  72,  t.  97. 
"   ruscifolia,  A.  St.  Hil. 
"  tomentosa,  A.  St.  Hil. 
"  Beyrichii,  Hb.  Lehm. 
3  from  Peru    .    .    .    .  <f  triandra,  Ruiz  et  Pav.  Flor.  Feruv.,  i.,  tab.  98. 
<e  linearis,  Ruiz  et  Pav.    Flor.  Feruv.,  i.,  tab.  94. 
"  cuspidata,  Presl.    Reliq.,  Haenk.,  ii.  103. 
3  from  Mexico     ..."  secundiflora.    Flor.  Hex.,  ic.  ined. 
"  pauciflora.    Flor.  Mex.9  ic.  ined. 
"  cistoidea.    Hook,  in  App.  ad  B.  Voy.,  t.  5. 
2  from  the  West  Indies    "  cytisoides,  Cavan.    Ic.  4,  t.  590. 
«  Izine,  L.,  p.  177  (occurs  also  near  Cumana,  in  S. 
America.) 
1  from  Florida,  Texas,  \  "  lanceolata,  Torrey.    Asa  Gray,  Genera,  ii.  225, 
and  Arkansas  \         tab.  185,  186. 
The  species  called  by  Martius,  in  his  Pharmacognosies  Kr.  argentea,  I  have  been 
unable  to  find. 
Aug.  St.  Hilaire,  who  usually  enters  so  much  into  detail,  mentions  nothing 
about  the  use  of  the  roots  of  the  Brazilian  species  ;  and  De  Candolle,  in  speaking 
of  Krameria  triandra,  only  says  that  the  root  is  officinal.  Tussac  gives  a  little 
more  information  in  his  Flor.  Antillarum,  in  which  work  (tab.  15,  fig.  10,  ll),he 
figures  an  entire  root  and  also  a  portion  of  a  root  of  Kr.  Ixine  ;  he  also  gives  some 
account  of  its  uses  in  the  countries  where  produced.  Asa  Gray  mentions  (1.  c.) 
that  the  root  of  Kr.  lanceolata,  Torrey,  frequently  three  feet  long,  is  often  sub- 
stituted in  the  south  of  the  United  States  for  the  root  imported  from  Peru,  but 
he  gives  no  description  of  it.  In  the  Flora  of  North  America  of  Drs.  Torrey 
and  Asa  Gray,  we  find,  however,  when  speaking  of  the  properties  and  effects  of 
the  Peruvian  Rhatany,  that  "  the  roots  of  Kr.  lanceolata  are  endowed  with  similar 
properties  as  the  roots  of  Kr.  triandra."  I  am  indebted  to  the  verbal  communi- 
cation of  my  friend  Dr.  Matthes  for  the  information  that  during  a  residence  of 
many  years  in  Texas,  he  had  known  but  few  instances  of  the  root  of  Kr.  lanceo- 
lata, there  a  common  plant,  being  used  in  medicine. 
