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Alexander von Humboldt: „On the Cinchona Forests in South America“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1807-Ueber_die_Chinawaelder-3> [abgerufen am 29.03.2024].

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Titel On the Cinchona Forests in South America
Jahr 1821
Ort London
Nachweis
in: Aylmer Bourke Lambert, An Illustration of the Genus Cinchona; Comprising Descriptions of All the Officinal Peruvian Barks, Including Several New Species, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown 1821, S. [19]–59.
Sprache Englisch
Typografischer Befund Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Fußnoten mit Asterisken und Kreuzen; Schmuck: Initialen, Kapitälchen.
Identifikation
Textnummer Druckausgabe: II.57
Dateiname: 1807-Ueber_die_Chinawaelder-3
Statistiken
Seitenanzahl: 41
Zeichenanzahl: 71802

Weitere Fassungen
Über die Chinawälder in Südamerika (Berlin, 1807, Deutsch)
Delle foreste di Cinchona nell’America meridionale (Mailand, 1808, Italienisch)
On the Cinchona Forests in South America (London, 1821, Englisch)
|19|

ON THECINCHONA FORESTS OF SOUTHAMERICA.


BY A. VON HUMBOLDT.

SECTION I.

The present Essay is written with a view to examine the Cin-chona tree as an object of physical or botanical geography.Amongst the numerous writers mentioning the Cinchona, thereare none but La Condamine, Ruiz, Pavon, and Zea, who them-selves have observed this beneficial tree upon the South Ameri-can continent. Only the first of these gives a physical descrip-tion of this plant; the others, as well as Jacquin and Swartz,who saw the Cinchonæ in the West-India Islands, and Vahl and Lambert, who occupied themselves with dried specimens, havemerely treated on the natural history and the botanical diagno-sis. During my stay of four years in South America, I hadoccasion to reside a long time in countries where the Cinchonatrees are indigenous. M. Bonpland and myself have observedthem north and south of the equator, in the kingdom of NewGranada, betwixt Honda and Santa Fe de Bogota, in the pro-vince of Popayan, in the corregiment of Loxa, on the Ama-zon river, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros; and in thenortherly part of Peru. During our abode in the house ofDon Jose Celestino Mutis, in Santa Fe, the botanical treasuresof that great natural philosopher were opened to us. In Spain, |20| also, we were enabled to collect, from the editor of the FloraPeruviana, in Guayaquil, (the harbour of Quito on the coastof the South Sea) from M. Tafalla, a pupil of Ruiz, in the littletown of Loxa, from Don Vincente Olmedo, royal inspector ofthe Cinchona forests, many interesting accounts respecting objectswhich, but for the obliging communications from those friends,would have remained unknown to us. Respecting the very violentcontroversy on the question, whether the orange-coloured Cin-chona bark of New Granada, or the Peruvian Cinchona nitida, described by Ruiz and Pavon, be identical with the genuine Cin-chona of Uritusinga, famed already since 1638, he only can decidewho has himself explored the regions producing these three plants.But of the contending parties, neither Mutis, Zea, nor Ruiz and Pavon, have ever set their feet in the corregiment of Loxa.Thence it is, that each party has, with equal want of foundation,asserted that the most efficacious Cinchona bark of their re-spective districts was the genuine one from Uristusinga. In thesecond fasciculus of our Æquinoctial Plants* we have shown, thatthis latter, the Cascarilla fina de Loxa, is entirely different from Cinchona lancifolia of Mutis, and from all those PeruvianCinchona barks described in Ruiz’s Quinologia, in the FloraPeruviana, and in the recent Supplement to the Quinologia. Averse as we are from entering into competition with the above-named excellent botanists, yet the accidental advantage has fallento our lot, of having ourselves seen the Cinchona forests nearSanta Fe, as also those of Loxa. In fact, for the last sixty years,since the time of Joseph de Jussieu, whose observations weremoreover never published, no travelling naturalist has precededus in visiting the beautiful mountain plains of Loxa. Favouredby these circumstances, I think myself enabled to speak with
* Plantes Æquinoctiales, par Messrs. Bonpland et Humboldt, Troisieme livraison, p. 39.
|21| some confidence on so difficult a subject, which, by a variety ofcontroversies, has become more and more perplexed.
It would be superfluous to repeat the fictions concerning thehistory of the discovery of the medicinal powers of the Cinchonabark. Some say a patient had drank out of a lake the watersof which had acquired a bitter taste from Cinchona trunks whichhad lain in them; others, that a lion had cured himself of theague by chewing Cinchona bark, and had thus directed the at-tention of the Indians to this tree. Lambert, in his Mono-graph of Cinchona, * has collected all these opinions. Thatanimals have taught men, is a very common form of the traditionsof nations. The valuable antidote Vijuco del guaco, a plant de-scribed by Mutis, which is related to the Mikania, and has beenerroneously confounded with the Ayapana of Brazil, is also saidto have attracted the notice of the Indians (as is affirmed of the Falco serpentarius) by the Falco guaco of New Granada fightingwith serpents. However, that the great American lion withoutmane, Felis concolor, should be subject to the ague, is just asbold an hypothesis as the assertion of the inhabitants of thepestilential valley Gualla Bamba, that even the vultures (Vul-tur aura) in their neighbourhood were subject to that disorder.Indeed, in the regions of the Cinchona forests there is not evena Felis concolor so fond of warmth to be found; but at the mostthe cat Puma, not yet properly described, (La Condamine’s Petit lion du volcan de Pinchincha, which I should be inclinedto call Felis andicola,) and which we have met with in heightsof 2,500 toises. The story, so often copied, respecting the Countess Chinchon,vice-queen of Peru, is probably still more doubtful than it isgenerally supposed to be. There certainly was a Count Chin-
* A Description of the Genus Cinchona, 1792, p. 39. Near to the town of Quito.
|22| chon, Don Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera Bobadella y Mendoza,who was Viceroy in Lima from 1629 to 1639. It is very pro-bable that his wife, after her return to Spain in 1640, was thefirst who introduced the Cinchona bark into Europe. The nameof Pulvis Comitissæ appears even more ancient than that of Pulvis Jesuiticus or Pulvis Patrum. But I do not believe (andM. Olmedo in Loxa is of the same opinion with me) that thecorregidor of Loxa, Don Juan Lopez de Cannizares,* whois said to have cured the Countess of the ague, received this re-medy from the Indians. In Loxa there is no tradition whateverof this kind; nor is it probable that the discovery of the medi-cinal power of the Cinchona belongs to the primitive nationsof America, if it is considered that these nations (like the Hin-doos) adhere with unalterable pertinacity to their customs, totheir food, and to their nostrums, and that, notwithstanding allthis, the use of the Cinchona bark is entirely unknown to themin Loxa, Guancabamba, and far around. In the deep and hotvalleys of the mountains of Catamago, Rio Calvas, and Macara,agues are extremely common. But the natives there, as wellas in Loxa, of whatever cast, would die rather than have re-course to Cinchona bark, which, together with opiates, theyplace in the class of poisons exciting mortification. The Indianscure themselves by lemonades, by the oleaginous aromatic peel ofthe small green wild lemon, by infusions of Scoparia dulcis, andby strong coffee. In Malacatis only, where many bark-peelerslive, they begin to put confidence in the Cinchona bark. InLoxa there is no document to be found which can elucidate thehistory of the discovery of the Cinchona: an old tradition, how-
* Flora Peruviana, tom. ii. p. 2. Among the Indians on the Orinoco, particularly in Atures and Maypura, we have foundan excellent febrifuge, the frutta de Burro, the fruit of a new species of Uvaria, which wehave described by the name of Uvaria febrifuga.
|23| ever, is current there, that the Jesuits at the felling of the wood haddistinguished, according to the custom of the country, the dif-ferent kinds of trees by chewing their barks, and that on such occa-sions they had taken notice of the considerable bitterness of theCinchona. There being always medical practitioners among theMissionaries, it is said they had tried an infusion of the Cinchonain the tertian ague, a complaint which is very common in thatpart of the country. This tradition is less improbable than the asser-tion of European authors, and among them the late writers Ruiz and Pavon, who ascribe the discovery to the Indians. The medi-cinal powers of the Cinchona was likewise entirely unknownto the inhabitants of the kingdom of New Granada.
A century elapsed before any botanical description was ob-tained of the tree whose pulverized bark yielded the Jesuit’sPowder. The astronomer La Condamine, who ranged with in-describable vivacity through all departments of human know-ledge, and by whom there are several neat botanical drawingsin the collection of Jussieu in Paris, was the first man of sciencewho examined and described the Cinchona tree. In the year1737* he travelled through Loxa to Lima, and his descriptionof the Cinchona appeared in 1738 in the Mem. de l’Academie. Afterwards, in the year 1739, Joseph de Jussieu explored thecountry in the vicinity of Loxa. There, and in the neighbour-hood of Zaruma, he gathered a great number of specimens, whichare still to be found in Jussieu’s collection at Paris, and whichwe have compared with our own, collected sixty years later onthe same spot. Amongst these was the Cinchona pubescens, which Vahl has described as new, but which, as we shallsubsequently prove, is the first Cinchona officinalis of Linné’s Systema Naturæ (12th edition). In the year 1743 La Con-
* Voyage à l’Equateur, p. 31, 75, 186, and 203.
|24| damine
was a second time in Loxa, from whence he travelled,as we did in the year 1802, to Tomepinda and the Amazon river.At that time the first and (what is singular enough) the lastattempt was made to bring young Cinchona trees alive to Eu-rope. After the astronomer had carefully nursed them for eightmonths during a passage of 1200 leagues, they were swallowedup by a wave, which washed over the boat, near Cape Orange,north of Para.
Botanists for a long time were acquainted with only one spe-cies of Cinchona, which Linnæus called officinalis, and in thedescription of which, he united, without knowing it, our C. Condaminea and C. cordifolia Mutis; for the specimen sent himfrom Santa Fe was yellow Cinchona, and totally different fromthat drawn, though imperfectly, by La Condamine. At last Jac-quin’s voyage made us acquainted with another species, viz. the C. caribæa. The West India Islands, the South Seas, even theEast Indies, offered from time to time more species of Cinchonato the traveller, but the most efficacious and the most remark-able ones of the continent of South America remained longestunnoticed. From 1638 to 1776 no other Cinchona bark was met with in com-merce, except that of the corregiment of Loxa and its neigh-bourhood. La Condamine makes mention of the bark fromRiobamba and Cuenca in the province of Quito, as also of thatfrom Ayavanca and Jaen de Bracamoros. But the bark fromthe interior of Peru (around Huanuca, and in the province LaPaz) or even the bark from the kingdom of New Granada wasentirely unknown to him. They did not suppose it possible for Cinchona trees to existnorth of the Equator, and consequently in our hemisphere, tilla fortunate accident led a man, who had a long time lived in |25| Loxa, in some department connected with the peeling ofbarks, on his return to Spain, across Popayan to Santa Fede Bogota. This observing traveller was the upper Mint Di-rector (Superintendente general de moneda de Santa Fe) Don Miguel de Santistevan, who, without any botanical knowledge,discovered physiognomically, that is to say, by mere habitus,the Cinchona trees from Loxa up to 2\( \frac{1}{2} \)° N. lat. In a memo-rial concerning the royal administration of the whole trade ofCinchona bark (Estanco de Cascarilla) which in 1753 he ad-dressed to the viceroy Marquis de Villar, he expressly says thathe had found Cinchona trees not only betwixt Loxa and Quito,for instance, easterly from Cuenca near the villages Paute andGualasco, westerly from Riobamba on the declivity of the Chim-borazo near Angas, and on the Cuesta de S. Antonio, but alsobetwixt Quito and Santa Fe in all situations, where the ground isof an equal height with Loxa, consequently 800 toises above thelevel of the sea. The estimate of the height according to modernmeasurements, and even according to the earlier ones of La Con-damine,* is certainly too low by at least 250 toises; but the acuteobservation, respecting the mean height in which the Cinchonatrees are always met with on the mountainous declivity, is themore striking, since even learned philosophers at that time paidattention to the geography of plants, or to the height of theirsituation. It is also to be observed, that although M. Santis-tevan, according to the manuscript accounts which I procured ofhim, speaks generally of Cinchona trees betwixt Quito and SantaFe, yet we can perceive from his enumeration of particular places,that he discovered this precious produce only in the valley ofRio Tuanamba north of Pasto, in the forests of Beruccos, and inthe vicinity of Popayan, near Guanacas, the dangerous pass of
* Voyage de la Rivière de l’Amazone, p. 25.
|26| the Andes, betwixt the village of this name and the Sitia delos Corrales.
Such was the state of the discovery of Cinchona north of the equator until the year 1772. All the Cinchona bark of com-merce was from Loxa, Gauancabamba, and Jaen, perhaps evenfrom Riobamba and Cuenza. The whole was shipped at theports of the Pacific. No advantage was derived from the im-portant discovery in the provinces of Pasto and Popayan. Inthe year 1772 Don Jose Celestino Mutis discovered the Cinchonaabout Santa Fe, and since this epoch Europe received Cinchonabark which did not double Cape Horn, and which came by wayof Carthagena de Indias to Cadiz. M. Mutis had resided already twelve years in the kingdom ofNew Granada. He had travelled twice through the forests be-tween Guaduas and Santa Fe, where the Cinchona tree is surround-ed by the beautiful Granada oaks. If we consider the diversity ofplants which engage the attention of the botanist in these coun-tries; if we reflect that in the tropics the height of the trunkswithdraws from our eyes both leaves and blossoms; we shall bethe less surprised that M. Mutis discovered the Cinchona only in1772, when he found it in blossom. This excellent explorer ofnature, who is a native of Cadiz, studied three years in Madrid,and was induced by a love of botany to accompany the vice-roy Don Pedro Misia de la Cerda, as his physician, to SantaFe. He lived a long time in the districts of Pampelona andde la Montuosa, a name which, to the greatest dissatisfactionof M. Mutis, Linnæus has construed into Mexico; so thatthis Swedish botanist has quoted all the New Granada spe-cimens which he received from la Montuosa, as Mexican ones.* This error is the more singular, since Linnæus, who correspond-ed with Mutis always by way of Carthagena de Indias, must have
* For instance, Mannettia reclinata.
|27| perceived that he never resided in Mexico. The absence ofM. Mutis in the mines north of Santa Fe had kept him farfrom the Cinchona forests of Mave, Gascas, and the Aseradero. Mutis, in a report to the viceroy Don Manuel Antonio Florez,alleges as a ground of the later discovery of the Cinchona, thatup to 1772 he had directed all his botanical excursions out ofthe limits of the first 5 degrees of N. lat., which he held to be theexclusive country of the Cinchona in the northern hemisphere.This great naturalist did not at that time suspect, that soon after-wards the Cinchona tree would be found to exist even at themouth of the Rio Opon, and as far as Santa Martha, conse-quently in the 10th degree of N. lat.
Mutis had procured the first dried specimens of the yellowCinchona of Loxa (C. cordifolia) from M. Santistevan, directorof the Mint. According to these, the genus Cinchona was es-tablished in such manner as he communicated it to Linnæus.In the year 1772, when M. Mutis, in company with his friendDon Pedro Ugarte, rode through the forest of Tena, not far fromthe mountainous declivity of Santa Fe, he discovered Cinchonatrees. A year afterwards he also found them betwixt Hondaand Guaduas; and presented to the viceroy Don Manuel deGuirior, who had just embarked on the Magdalen river, a flower-ing branch of Cinchona, as a newly-discovered valuable pro-duct of that country, which nature had also enriched with aro-matic Nutmegs (Myristica Otoba), with an excellent Cinnamontree (Laurus cinnamomoides Mut.) with aromatic Puchery or Todaspuie (Laurus * Putseri Mut.), with Almonds (Caryocaramygdaliferum Mut.), with four kinds of Styrax, with the Bal-
* The Laurus Putseri of Mutis is the same as the Laurus Pucheri of Fl. Peruviana, vol. iv.t. 352. ined. The number of species of this genus figured in the fourth vol. ined. of the FloraPeruviana, amounts to thirty. The fruit of the Laurus Pucheri is frequently sold in the Lon-don shops under the name of Sassafras nuts. Caryocar amygdaliferum, Fl. Peruv. vol. v. ined.t. 470. Myrospermum balsamiferum, Fl. Peruv. 4, ined. t. 373.
|28| sam of Tolu (Toluifera * indica), with a Tea tree (Alstoniatheæformis Mut.), with Ipecacuanha (Psychotria emetica Mut.),with Wax-palms (Ceroxylon andicola Humb.), with Caranniagum (Æginetia cannifera Mut.), with Winter’s bark (Wintera granadensis), with Quassia simarouba, and with the valuabledyeing woods.
In the history of sciences, it often happens that the personwho knows how to diffuse, with a certain degree of boldness,the discovery of another, passes for the discoverer himself, in-stead of him who made that discovery. M. Mutis, a man of a li-beral and enlightened mind, asked no reward from the Go-vernment. He occupied himself without ostentation in botani-cal examinations of the kinds of Cinchona which he discovered,and in the application of their barks through an extensive me-dical practice. In the year 1783 only, he obtained a royal sa-lary, when the botanical expedition of Santa Fe was organizedby M. Gongora, who was both archbishop and viceroy. In the year 1776, four years after M. Mutis’s discovery, Don Sebastian Jose Lopez Ruiz, a cunning and petulant physicianat Santa Fe, a native of Ganama, found means to persuadethe Spanish Government that he had first discovered Cinchonatrees in New Granada. He sent samples of the new Cinchonato Madrid, spoke a great deal of the importance of this newarticle of commerce, and obtained a yearly pension of 2000 pias-tres for his reward. From records which M. Lopez remitted tome in the year 1802, by his brother, a canon in Quito, in orderto prove to me the priority of his discovery, I have found thathe knew the Cinchona about Honda only in the year 1774, andthat he made the first medicinal experiment with it in the year1775. M. Lopez did not long enjoy his full salary. The vice-roy Gongora, who besides esteemed M. Mutis greatly, and hisfirst secretary Don Zenon de Alonzo, who was a zealous pro-
* Myrospermum balsamiferum.
|29| moter of the sciences, represented to the Court, that M. Lopez was not the first discoverer of the New Granada Cinchona bark.They immediately withdrew one half of the royal pension, or-dered M. Lopez to travel to the Darien, where it was also pre-tended that Cinchona had been discovered; and as he refused toundertake a journey to such a pestilential climate, the viceroy dis-continued the other half of his salary. Since this epoch a violentdispute has arisen respecting the priority of the discovery. Lopez made a voyage to Europe, and again contrived to procure forhimself a salary of 1000 piastres. He ingratiated himself withM. Mutis’s botanical opponents, and these have mentioned himfrequently since as co-discoverer. It is still more remarkable,that Colonel Don Antonio de la Torre Miranda wishes to prove,in his Topography of the province of Carthagena, (Noticia indi-vidual de los Poblaciones nuevas fundadas en la Provincia deCarthagena,) by means of testimonies, that to him belongs thehonour of discovering the Cinchona bark in New Granada, be-cause in the year 1783 (consequently eleven years after M. Mu-tis) he had discovered it near Fusagasuga. M. Mutis had be-gun, in Mariquita, a plantation of Cinchona and of Cinnamon* of the Andaquia Missions, the remains of which we also saw.In the year 1800 the Spanish Government commissioned a Frenchphysician, M. Louis Derieux, to continue these plantations; to cul-tivate the indigenous Myristica, and to superintend generallythe packing of the Cinchona bark in New Granada. He received asalary of 2000 piastres, with the title of Commissionado y Encar-gada de Investigaciones de Historia Natural en el Nuevo Reynode Granada. He possessed as little botanical knowledge asM. Lopez, but was a man of strong mind and intellectual capa-city. He had long before lived in Santa Fe, from whence he
* Laurus cinnamomoides, Mutis.—Edit. Myristica otoba, Humb. et Bonpl. Plantæ Æquin. 2. p. 78. tab. 103.—Edit.
|30| was dragged in chains to Carthagena, and thence to a prison inCadiz, under the false accusation of revolutionary principles.After his innocence had been acknowledged, the Minister of StateDon Mariano de Urquijo conferred on him the superintendanceof the Cinchona forests. I travelled with him upon the MagdalenRiver, during which time his amiable son made several drawingsof plants for me. The father stepped forth betwixt M. Mutis and M. Lopez. As the specific characters of the species of Cin-chona excited the bitterest disputes between Zea, Ruiz, and Pavon, at Madrid, so the Cinchona bark, ever since its firstdiscovery, has been an odious object of persecution in Santa Fe.I have learned with great regret, that soon after I left SouthAmerica, M. Derieux had lost his salary, and had even beencompelled to leave the vice-royalty, so that the Cinchona treesagain grow without any superintendance, which, indeed, hashitherto not promoted their increase or preservation.
In this simple historical narrative we have shown, that tillthe year 1772 all Cinchona bark was collected in the forests ofLoxa, Ayavaca, and Jaen de Bracamoros, consequently betweenthe 3rd and 5th degrees of south latitude, and that onlyfrom the year 1772 the medicinal Cinchonæ on the SouthAmerican continent became used in the northern hemisphere;which species of Cinchona were discovered between the 4th and 5thdegrees of south latitude. Until then, none were known in PeruProper, especially in the mountains situated nearer to Lima, thecapital. The vale of Rio Calvas, and the village Ayavaca, inwhose neighbourhood the Cinchona Condaminea grows, famedsince the year 1738, belong indeed in a political respect toPeru, but both are situated close to the confines of the corregi-ment of Loxa; and the bark of Ayavaca, like that of Jaen, wassold by the name of Cascarilla fina de Uritusinga, as well asthat which was shipped in Payta. |31| It was only in 1776 that the real commerce in Peruvian Cin-chona bark began. Don Francisco Renquifo discovered nearHuanuco, on the mountain San Christo val de Cuchero, the C. nitida of Ruiz, a species very nearly related to the orange-coloured one of Mutis (Cinchona lancifolia). An enterprisingman, Don Emanuel Alcarraz, brought the first sample of it toLima, and turned the use of it to advantage. The editors ofthe Flora Peruviana did certainly not penetrate, in 1779, as faras the Amazon River itself, but only to those rivers which flowimmediately into it. They visited the beautiful valleys of Thar-ma, Xauxa, and Huamalies, and in 1779 determined the bota-nical characters of the North Peruvian species. This was con-sequently seven years after M. Mutis began his labours on theCinchonæ of New Granada. Shortly afterwards, medicinalCinchona bark was discovered at almost one and the sametime in the most northern and in the most southern part of SouthAmerica, in the mountains of Santa Martha, and in the king-dom of Buenosayres, near La Paz and Cochabamba, where anaval officer, Rubin de Celis, and the German botanist TaddæusHaenke, drew the attention of the inhabitants to this valuableproduce. After the year 1780, therefore, Europe was superabundantlysupplied from the ports of Payta, Guayaquil, Lima, Buenosayres,Carthagena, and Santa Martha, with Barks of various medicinalpowers. Of these barks, some went direct to Spain, and somewere transmitted by the smuggling trade to North America andEngland. West-Indian Cinchona barks were also occasionallymixed with those of the continent. They gave the name of Cin-chona to barks which indeed possess great febrifuge powers, butwhich are derived from trees which do not even belong to the genus Cinchona. Thus they spoke in Cadiz of Cascarilla or Quina de |32| Cumana and of Quina de la Angostura. They divided all barkinto genuine and into spurious, without considering, that, al-though true Cinchona barks possess equal medicinal power, yetthat they are capable of displaying specific differences in themanner of their efficacy. They asked for bark like that of Loxa,without considering that three or four kinds of Cinchona barkhad ever since 1738 come from Loxa itself to Europe, which werethe produce of quite different species of Cinchona. They for-got that the quality of the bark did not depend merely on itsbeing from the C. lancifolia or from C. macrocarpa, but thatlocality of growth, the age of the tree, quick or slow drying,determine its efficacy. They mistook the same species, if thebark was, instead of canutillos, i. e. in thin quills, in thick cor-tizones, or even powdered. They mixed, sometimes through mis-take, sometimes intentionally, the bark of Wintera granadensis and of the tanning Weinmannias, with the Cinchona bark, andeven stained them with an infusion of Brazil wood. These circumstances gave rise to very singular prejudicesin judging of Cinchona bark. Certain mercantile houses inSpain, which half a century since were in possession of theexclusive trade in Cinchona bark, endeavoured to throw disreputeon that from New Granada and southern Peru. They found com-plaisant botanists, who, by boldly exalting varieties to species,proved that all Peruvian Cinchonæ were specifically different fromthose which grow about Santa Fe. Physicians, like the Popes,drew lines of demarcation on the map. They insisted, that be-yond a certain degree of latitude in the northern hemisphere noefficacious Cinchona could grow. But as the commerce withCinchona bark from Huamalies and Huanuco, which Ortega, Ruiz, Pavon, and Tafalla recommended, soon fell into the handsof those who had formerly carried on the South Sea trade in the |33| Cinchona bark of Loxa, the new Peruvian Cinchona barks na-turally gained easier access into Spain than those from SantaFe. The latter, on the contrary, which the English and NorthAmericans could easily procure in Carthagena, as a port moreaccessible to the smuggling trade, obtained a preferable famein London, Germany, and Italy. The effect of mercantilecunning went so far, that, at the royal command, a quantity ofthe best orange-coloured Cinchona bark from New Granada,which M. Mutis had caused to be peeled at the expense of theking, was burned, as a decidedly inefficacious remedy, at atime when all the Spanish field-hospitals were in the greatestwant of this valuable product of South America. A part of theCinchona bark condemned to destruction was secretly bought byEnglish merchants in Cadiz, and publicly sold in London athigh prices. Since M. Zea, the present director of the botanic gar-den at Madrid, has maintained, in the Annales de Ciencias Natu-rales, against the editors of the Flora Peruviana, that their Pe-ruvian species of Cinchona are identical with those of M. Mutis,but that they have described one and the same species undertwo or three names, the dispute concerning the quality ofCinchona bark from Santa Fe has again become very animated.The Supplement of the Quinologia, by Ruiz and Pavon, is writ-ten with a bitterness which ought always to remain foreign to thecalm course of scientific inquiries. Before we proceed from the history of the discovery of the Cin-chona to its geographical diffusion, and their remaining phy-sical relations, we must cast a glance upon the specific diffe-rences of the several kinds of Cinchona. A properly completebotanical disquisition is foreign to the purpose of this Treatise.M. Bonpland and myself will attempt it on another occasion, |34| viz. in the description of the two thousand new species of plantsdiscovered during our expedition, and partly determined alreadyby our excellent friend M. Willdenow. As almost every spe-cies of Cinchona is peculiar to its own region, to its own alti-tude on the mountainous declivity of the chain of the Andes,it is unavoidably necessary, for the satisfactory treatment ofthe subject, to adjust at least the synonymy of the most impor-tant officinal species. I shall certainly make mention of thatonly, which I have had the opportunity of observing with myown eyes.

|35|

ON THECINCHONA FORESTS OF SOUTHAMERICA.


BY A. VON HUMBOLDT.

SECTION II.

The genus Cinchona belongs to those tribes of plants, whosespecies have been considerably multiplied of late. Linnæus knew but two of them, viz. C. officinalis and C. Caribæa. Vahl,* in his treatise on Cinchona Bark, enumerates nine; Lambert, in his English Monograph, eleven; Persoon, inhis little Enchiridium Botanicum, one-and-twenty species. Ifwe yet add to these, two Cosmibuenæ of the Flora Peruviana, belonging formerly to the genus Cinchona, the Cinchona excelsa of Roxburgh, found in the East Indies, my C. Condaminea, Vavas-sour’s C. spinosa, and Willdenow’s yet undescribed small-leaved C. brasiliensis, for which we are indebted to Count Hoffmann-segg in the expedition instituted by him for objects of naturalhistory, then the number of species of Cinchona appears to haveincreased to twenty-seven. The authors of the Flora Peruviana alone have entertained the notion of describing thirteen new spe-cies, while M. Mutis has reduced all the Cinchonæ, examinedby him in South America, to seven only. Even Professor Zea, in
* Skrivter of Naturhistorie Selskabet, B. i. H. i. p. 16. Description of the genus Cinchona, 1797. Synopsis Plantarum, P. i. p. 196.
|36| the Annales de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, *has venturedto prove that almost all the efficacious species, enumerated by Ruiz and Pavon, can be reduced to four, viz. C. lancifolia,C. oblongifolia, C. cordifolia, and C. ovalifolia, described by Mutis, in the year 1793, in the literary news of Santa Fe deBogota.
Indeed I hardly know any one tree varying more in the shapeof its leaves than the Cinchona. Whoever determines single spe-cimens of dried collections, and has no opportunity to examine orobserve them in their native forests, will, as is the case with the Broussonettia papyrifera, be led to discover different species byleaves which are of one and the same branch. The yellow bark, C. pubescens, Vahl, we have found at one and the same time with fol. ovato-oblongis, ovato-lanceolatis, and ovato-cordatis. Mutis calls it C. cordifolia, because it is the only kind on which some-times cordate leaves are found. The same species varies like thewhite Cinchona, C. ovalifolia, Mut. (C. macrocarpa, Vahl) fo-liis utrinque levibus and foliis utrinque pubescentibus. Thesevarieties are represented in those well executed coloured draw-ings which M. Mutis presented me during my residence in SantaFe, and which have been deposited, together with a complete hortus siccus of my expedition to the tropics, in the Jardindes Plantes at Paris. Even the laurel-leaved C. Condaminea, the finest bark from Uritusinga, has very diversified leaves,according to the altitude at which it grows, and which equalsthat of Saint Gothard’s or Mount Ætna. It would deceive thebark-peelers (cascarilleros) themselves, if they did not knowthe tree by the glands, left so long unobserved by botanists. InGonzanama, not far from Loxa, we made a great number of im-
* Anno 1801, No. 5. Papel Periodico de Santa Fe, 1793, No. 111.
|37| pressions, by means of printer’s ink, from these heterogeneousforms of leaves, in order to prove how unsafe all those distinc-tions are, which have been derived from the leaves only. Thelong known but yet very imperfect method of ectypa is parti-cularly advantageous for this and similar purposes, as it offersto much-occupied travellers the means of procuring in a few mi-nutes the most correct outlines.
The more the Cinchona trees vary in the shape and smooth-ness of the leaves, according to the altitude in which they grow;to the severity or mildness of the climate; to the trees standingsingly, or being closely surrounded by other plants; to the luxu-riance of growth, and greater or less humidity of the soil; themore necessary is it, with regard to the diagnostic indications, topay attention to the form of the flowers, particularly to thelength of the anthers, to the proportion between the stamensand anthers, as also between the free and the adherent partof the filaments. It is not sufficient to examine the species insuch as have a smooth or hirsute corolla, or the stamens exsert-ed, or inclosed in the tube of the corolla. An attentive observerfinds in almost every species a striking difference in the struc-ture of the corolla. Thus, the C. parviflora, Mut. has pubescentfilaments, and dilated at the base. C. macrocarpa, Vahl, anthersnearly sessile, placed in the upper part of the tube of the corolla. C. oblongifolia, Mut. filaments very short, anthers situated belowthe middle of the tube of the corolla. The Cinchona ovalifolia, Mut., or the white Cinchona, varies frequently with from six toseven, the C. Condaminea with from three to four stamens only. Inthe first, the limb of the corolla is frequently found divided intosix or seven, in that of the latter, mostly into four segments. Inthe Cascarilla fina de la Provincia de Jaen, which M. Bonpland intends shortly to describe, I found the anthers always shorter than |38| the free part of the filaments, and this free part again longer thanthe adherent one. On the other hand, I oberved that in the Cas-carilla fina de Uritusinga, or the C. Condaminea, the anthersare twice the length of the free portion of the filaments, and thefree parts are two-thirds shorter than the adherent one. There isscarcely any mention of these proportions in the otherwise ex-cellent descriptions of Cinchonæ for which we are indebted to Vahl, Swartz, and the authors of the Flora Peruviana. In themercantile world, several barks are called Peruvian bark whichdo not belong to the genus Cinchona. Thus, the excellent remedywhich the Catalan Capuchin friars of the missions on the RiverCarony first made known, was called in Spain Quina de la Guay-ana, or de la Angostura. M. Mutis became acquainted with thisbark in 1759 in Madrid, at the house of Don Vincente Rodriguezde Rivas:* he employed it in his medical practice, and even thensupposed that it did not belong to the genus Cinchona. Lœfling died in the missions of Carony without knowing this valuablesubstance. It was afterwards ascribed, sometimes to the Brucea ferruginea, which however grows in Abyssinia; sometimes to the Magnolia glauca; sometimes (which certainly was more probable)to the Magnolia Plumieri. In our expedition we had an oppor-tunity of examining botanically the Cuspare tree, which yieldsthe cortex Angosturæ. We discovered it to be a new genus, onwhich our excellent friend Willdenow, in the Transactions of theRoyal Academy of Berlin, has conferred the name of Bonplandia .This name of my travelling companion has been retained for theCuspare plant, since we have changed the Mexican Bonplandia geminiflora, described by Cavanilles, to Caldasia heterophylla. The bark of Cumana, which for the last four or five years has
* Pupel periodico de Santa Fe, No. 95. p. 337. Samml. Deutscher Abhandl. für 1801 und 1802, S. 36.
|39| been sent to Spain, through the exertions of Governor Don Vin-cente Emparan, under the name of Cascarilla de Nueva Andalu-sia, is likewise different from Cinchona. A chemist would hard-ly be able to distinguish this Cuspa bark from true Cinchonabark. It is an excellent remedy in the ague. Although weobserved for almost a twelvemonth the Cuspa trees of RioManzanario near Cumana, yet it never fell to our lot to meetwith its flowers. We do not know, therefore, by what distinctivemark it differs from the genus Bonplandia and Cinchona. Thewant of stipulæ, however, the situation of the leaves, and thewhole habitus, make it more than probable that the Cuspa isnot a Cinchona. The absence of stipulæ is particularly striking.Yet notwithstanding its alternate leaves, the Bark-tree of Cuma-na might still be a Cinchona, for the same reason that Cornusalternifolia stands isolated amongst twelve species of Cornus withopposite leaves. It has likewise remained doubtful to us, whe-ther the bark of Acatamez, a village situated westward of Villede Ibarra on the coast of the South Sea, betwixt Rio Verde andRio Esmeraldita, be the produce of a species of Cinchona. Theflower of this Acatamez bark-tree, with which we became ac-quainted during our stay in the town of Popayan, has not beenhitherto examined by botanists. Mr. Brown, who long before uswas in the South Sea, (in 1793,) has already given some account in Lambert’s Monograph of Cinchona* of this new species of thetorrid zone. Either from want of geographical information, orby corruption of the name, he calls it Bark of Tecamez, insteadof Cascarilla of Acatamez.
A fourth tribe of plants producing Peruvian bark, althoughof less medicinal power, is the genus Cosmibuena of the FloraPeruviana. To this belongs Cinchona longiflora, Mut. or C. gran-
* Lambert, p. 30.
|40| diflora, Ruiz. It is a tree of great beauty, which we have fre-quently seen in deep hot valleys exhibiting its beautiful fragrantblossoms. The stamens lie deep and hidden in the tube of thecorolla; and the fructification is so similar to that of the otherspecies of Cinchona, that the Cosmibuena can hardly be admittedto constitute a distinct genus.
On the other hand, it might be advisable to form the Cin-chonæ with long stamina far projecting from the tube of thecorolla, such as Jacquin’s C. Caribæa, Swartz’s C. angustifo-lia, C. brachycarpa, and C. floribunda, into a separate genusnearly allied to Cinchona. The seven species belonging to itpossess this peculiarity, that all of them, except one, inhabitislands, viz. the Philippine, the West Indian, and the South SeaIslands, and that they prefer hot valleys, or even plains, to a highmountainous situation. I know but two species upon the SouthAmerican continent which have stamina exserta, Lambert’s C. longiflora from French Guiana, and the yet undescribed Cin-chona dissimiliflora, Mut. (staminibus longe exsertis, corollælaciniis tubo longioribus, foliis cordato-oblongis) which, in thekingdom of New Granada, descends from the declivity of themountains towards the plains as low as 200 toises above the levelof the sea. C. Caribæa and C. angustifolia are found in theWest Indies in still lower spots, even in regions which are suf-ficiently warm for plantations of sugar canes. All these IslandCinchonæ with projecting stamens have a smooth corolla. Allof them have a capitate or obtuse stigma, the C. Philippina * alone excepted, which M. Nee discovered at Santa Cruz de laLaguna, near Manilla. A divided stigma is, on the contrary,observed in all Cinchonæ with inclosed stamens. The co-rolla of the latter is sometimes smooth, sometimes hairy. M.
* Cavanilles Icones, t. iv. p. 15. t. 329.
|41| Mutis has already proposed, in the literary News of Santa Fe, toseparate the Cinchona with long projecting stamina from therest. “I know not,” says he, “what my friend Linnæus thoughtof the Cinchona of the South Sea, for its reception in the Sup-plement only proves the favour of the son, whose opinion hasnot with me the weight of the opinions of the father.” The au-thors of the Flora Peruviana wish to make the Island-Cinchonæ, Portlandiæ *; but M. Swarz, in Schrader’s Journal für die Bo-tanik , proves, that in the Island-Cinchonæ, as in those of thecontinent, the capsule is a dissepimentum loculorum exacte pa-rallelum, and in Portlandia a dissepimentum vere contrarium. Ruiz’s Portlandia corymbosa is therefore no Portlandia, butbelongs to the Cinchonæ filamentis e basi tubi ortis, to C. Ca-ribæa, C. floribunda, and C. brachycarpa, a groupe of plantswhich M. Swarz also wishes to unite into a separate genus on ac-count of the flower, but not on the score of fructification. The C. excelsa, with enormous leaves, frequently of twelve incheslength and fifteen inches breadth, discovered in the East Indies,stands almost in the middle, betwixt the West-Indian and South-American Cinchona, and its existence seems to dissuade us, as itwere, from the proposed separation of the two tribes. However,the C. excelsa Roxb. approaches less to the Island-Cinchona thanto the New Granada and Peruvian ones, corolla pubescenti, sta-minibus medio tubi insertis, nec e basi tubi nascentibus, antherisnec filamentis exsertis, margine seminum lacero, haud integro.The antheræ in this East India species are eight times longerthan the filaments. It is difficult to find reasons for uniting theIsland-Cinchonæ into a separate genus, in the formation of thefruit. They differ from the Cinchonæ of the continent of South
* Flor. Peruv. t. ii. praef. and p. 49. Band. I. p. 358. Schrader, a. a. O. S. 359.
|42| America
, “valvulis minus extrorsum divergentibus et recepta-culo ovato nec lineari seminumque margine integro nec lacero.”But except the smooth unindented coat of the seed wings, whichI mostly find, the remaining forms of the fruits exhibit grada-tions, which link together, as it were, all the Cinchonæ. Forthe new genus of Island-Cinchonæ, delighting in hot plains,there would consequently remain: corolla glabra, filamentislonge exsertis ex basi tubi nascentibus. Semina margine integrocincta. Stigma simplex capitatum. But 1°. Many Cinchonæstaminibus inclusis, and C. grandiflora Ruiz, have corollamglabram. 2°. C. Phillippina has far projecting filaments, stig-ma bilamellatum, and yet, as it appears, semina margine integrocincta. 3°. C. excelsa has stigma subcapitatum leviter emargi-natum, the seed not indented, and the filaments not projecting.Under these exceptions, it would certainly be bold to separatetribes of plants so nearly allied.
The singular prickly C. spinosa of St. Domingo appears atfirst sight to belong least to the genus Cinchona. It is wonder-fully small-leaved, and has frequently folia terna verticillata.Another prickly Cinchona differs still more in colour from thegenuine Cinchona bark trees; it grows near Guayaquil, on thecoast of the Pacific, and M. Tafalla showed it to us in the winterof 1803, during our stay there. This undescribed species is acreeper, and on that account in some measure related to the genus Danais from Madagascar, which Persoon ranks next in successionto the Portlandia, since the Pædeira fragrans, more resemblingthe Cinchona, has been separated from Pædeira fœtida. This newC. scandens of Tafalla has in other respects the complete fructi-fication of the ague-curing Cinchona, and belongs indisputably tothe most remarkable phenomena of the physiognomy of plants. The very same fruit of the genuine Cinchona is also produced |43| by Pinkneya pubens Michaux,* a tree which I found cultivatedtogether with C. Caribæa in the excellent botanic garden of Mr. Hamilton near Philadelphia. The Pinkneya grows on Mary’sRiver, in the province of Georgia, and is already described by Bartram, propter calycis laciniam unicam foliaceam bracteæfor-mem, by the name of Mussuenda bracteolata. The medicinalpowers for the cure of ague possessed by this plant, nearly al-lied to the genus Cinchona, and growing without the tropics,have not yet been investigated. On the other hand Mr. Wal-ker has shown in two excellent treatises, that the bark of Cor-nus florida from Virginia, and of C. sericea from Pensylvaniaand South Carolina, and even the Tulip tree (LiriodendronTulipifera) may be used with advantage in North America asremedies against agues. In the kingdom of New Spain, wherehitherto no species of Cinchona has been discovered, as the cu-rator of the Academical Botanic Garden at Mexico has assuredme, the yet undescribed Portlandia mexicana, discovered byM. Sesse, may supply the place of the Cinchona bark of Loxa. Inthe East Indies (according to D. Klein in Tranquebar) the Swie-tenia febrifuga, figured by Roxburgh, a plant of Swarz’s and Jacquin’s, Portlandia hexandra (Aublet’s Coutaria Speciosa), nearly allied to Cinchona, produces the bark of French Guyana,known in France by the name of Ecorce fébrifuge de Cayenne ,and which is no more derived from a Cinchona, than is the barkof Cumana or the Cuspare of Angostura. Thus much respecting the generic characters of the plantswhich approximate to Cinchona, and all of which belong to the
* Flor. Americana, I. p. 105. Walker on the virtues of the Cornus and the Cinchona compared. Philad. 1803. Rogers’s Diss. on the properties of the Liriodendron. Phil. 1802. Ventenat Tableau du Regne Vegetal, t. ii. p. 578.
|44| great family of Rubiaceæ. We see that as Caoutchouc* is obtainedin abundance from the juices of the most diversified plants onthe Orinoco and in Cayenne; from the Hevea on the Canno Pi-michin, a branch of the Negro; from the tree Jacio in thekingdom of New Granada; from a new species of Ficus in theprovince of Popayan, near the Indian village La Cruz; from a Lobelia (to be described by us) in Bengal; from the Urecola elas-tica, figured in the 5th volume of Asiatic Researches; in Mada-gascar, from the Commiphora madagascarensis; so does naturealso offer to us the ague-curing principle, or that mixture con-taining tannin and absorbing oxygene, which we obtain of a pre-ferable quality from Cinchona Condaminea, C. pubescens, Vahl.and C. lancifolia, Mut. in plants which do not even belong toone and the same genus. A chemist would perhaps find greaterdifferences between the West-Indian and South-American Cin-chona barks, than between the Cuspa of Cumana and the Cin-chona bark of Loxa; and yet the Cuspa tree, foliis alternis,stipulis nullis, is most probably a very remote genus from Cin-chona.
After we have separated with care, partly what in a botani-cal point of view is nearly related to Cinchona, partly whatpasses in commerce amongst different nations by the name ofChina, Cascarilla, Quinquina, or Ecorce fébrifuge; after we haveseparated the Cinchonæ with inclosed filaments, not growingfrom the lower end of the flower tube with divided stigma andindented margins of the seeds, from the Island-Cinchona, whoselong projecting filaments grow from the bottom of the flowertube, and which have, together with unindented seed wings, an
* The Cecropia peltata is frequently mentioned as a tree yielding a part of the Americancaoutchouc. But I doubt whether any part of the new continent makes use of a juice so dif-ficult to inspissate.
|45| undivided stigma; after we have examined the relation andsupposed similarity of mixture of Cinchona, Portlandia, Couta-rea, Cosmibuena, Pinkneya, Danais, Bonplandia, Cuspa, and theAcatamez tree, we pass to the definition of those species of Cin-chona which have become an object of great importance in thepractice of physic and in the intercourse of nations. Withoutthe fundamental exposition of the specific characters, and with-out adjusting some part of the synonymy, every thing which Iam going to state respecting the geographical diffusion of theCinchonæ, and their physical relations, would remain indi-stinct and dubious, since (as I have mentioned above) a pecu-liar region has been destined for almost every species, andsome botanists have, to the great detriment of science, givenone and the same name to the most heterogeneous species. Thus,for instance, Cinchona longiflora, Mut. is totally different from C. longiflora, Lambert. It is true, they both have a smoothcorolla, and belong to the Cinchonæ which are fond of heatand possess fewer medicinal powers. But the first, from NewGranada, has inclosed stamens, and is probably identical with C. grandiflora, Flor. Peruv. On the other hand, the C. longi-flora, Lambert, from French Guiana, belongs to those specieswhich have long projecting filaments and very short capsules. Cinchona Caribæa, Jacq. is totally different from that CinchonaCaribæa described in the Journal de Physique, Oct. 1790. Thediagnoses which I add are not borrowed from works alreadypublished, but arise partly from my own observations made fromnature itself, partly from an instructive intercourse with M. Mutis.
|46| Characteristics of some Species of Cinchona.
Vahl, in his excellent Monograph, augmented by Lambert,divides all the species into two groupes of plants, floribus to-mentosis, staminibus inclusis, and floribus glabris, staminibusexsertis. This division possesses this fault, that two charactersare placed opposite each other, which are by no means observedat one and the same time in all the species at present known. Cer-tainly no Cinchona with tomentose flowers has long projecting sta-mens, for in the East Indian species the anthers are merely visi-ble; but there are Cinchonæ which have, like C. parviflora, Mut.and C. grandiflora, Flor. Peruv. a smooth corolla and inclosedstamens. With more, although not with perfect justice, wemight separate Cinchonæ staminibus inclusis, stigmate bilamel-lato, seminum ala denticulatâ vel lacerâ, and Cinchonæ filamen-tis insertis ex imo tubi nascentibus, seminibus membranâ inte-grâ cinctis. However, it seems more correctly logical to dividethe Cinchonæ into those with smooth and into those with hairycorollas. The first division merely subdivides itself, accordingto the length of the stamens, into two smaller tribes, and (whatis certainly an important object) all the useful and ague-curingspecies associate into one groupe. A. Cinchonæ corollis tomentosis. 1. C. Condaminea, corollæ tubo hirto, foliis ovato-lanceolatisutrinque glaberrimis, in axillis nervorum inferne scrobiculatis. Humb. et Bonpl. Plant. Æquin. fasc. ii. p. 29. tab. 10. This species, the fine bark of Uritusinga, could only be taken |47| for the C. glandulifera, Flor. Peruv.; but this latter differscorollâ solummodo intus lanuginosâ, tubo externe glaberrimo,foliis inferne villosis.* The inhabitants also enumerate the C. glandulifera, which is called (at Chicoplaya) Cascarilla ne-grilla, among the less efficacious species of Cinchona. If any one species deserved exclusively the name C. offici-nalis, it would be the tree which produces the Cascarilla finade Uritusinga, a bark which has always been held in Spain asthe most efficacious in tertian agues, and which at present is ga-thered only for the Royal Apothecaries’ Hall, and is therefore ne-ver met with in trade by lawful channels. Notwithstanding thesepreferences, we have, for several reasons, preferred giving it anew name, not derived from its quality or medicinal powers.1°. Not one species, but all provided with hairy and woolly blos-soms, are Cinchonæ of the shops, and no species deserves an ab-solute preference, since different species are to be applied accord-ing to the difference and form of the disease: for instance, in in-termittent fevers of long standing, the C. Condaminea and C. lan-cifolia, Mut.; in diseases of the muscles or suppurating ulcers,the C. oblongifolia, Mut.; in the after treatment, to preventrelapses, the more mild C. cordifolia, Mut. 2°. In botanicalwritings, species of Cinchona totally distinct have been de-scribed by the name of C. officinalis. Had we bestowed thesame name on the Cinchona of Uritusinga, it would have beenconfounded with the yellow C. cordifolia, Mut., the white C. macrocarpa, Vahl, or even with the C. nitida, Ruiz, which atdifferent periods have been called C. officinalis. This latter point, equally important to the botanical synonymyand to the materia medica, merits a more circumstantial expla-nation. It is asked, What plant did Linnæus, in the 12th edition
* Flor. Peruv. t. iii. p. 1. t. 224.
|48| of the Systema Naturæ, call C. officinalis? Vahl maintains thatit was his C. macrocarpa * from the kingdom of New Granada,which he received from Ortega. But since C. macrocarpa, Vahl is nothing else but our white large-flowered Cinchona of SantaFe, C. ovalifolia, Mut.; and as, according to M. Mutis’s owntestimony, it had never been seen by Linnæus, then the C. ma-crocarpa, Vahl cannot be quoted as synonymous with C. offici-nalis, Linn. Syst. Nat. ed. 12. The great botanist of Copenha-gen, whose early death is so justly deplored by all the friendsof science, was misled to an erroneous synonymy in the follow-ing manner: 1°. He knew that Linnæus had at a later periodfounded his description of C. officinalis on specimens which hereceived from Santa Fe; and 2°. he erroneously presupposedthat all the Cinchona forests in the neighbourhood of Santa Fe,discovered by M. Mutis, consisted of white Cinchona, or C. ma-crocarpa.
Linnæus united, as already observed, two quite differentplants under the denomination of C. officinalis. The dried spe-cimen of which he made use for establishing the diagnosis,was (as M. Mutis has repeatedly and orally assured me) yellowCinchona, C. cordifolia, Mut., and the same species which Vahl calls C. pubescens, but of which one variety has entirely smoothleaves, folia utrinque glabra. Linnæus quotes as synonymousthe species described by Condamine in the Mem. de l’Academie, 1738: he consequently united one species from Santa Fe withanother which grows exclusively in the neighbourhood of Loxa. Ruiz, in his Quinologia , calls a species C. officinalis, whichhe afterwards describes in the Flor. Peruv. by the name of C. nitida. He maintained at the time, that this tree, which
* Act. Havn. I. p. 19. Lambert, p. 22. Cascarilla officinal. Quinolog. Arct. II. p. 56.
|49| grows in the forests of Huamalies and Xauxa, consequently farfrom Loxa, between the 10th and 12th degree South lat., wasthe Cinchona described by La Condamine. In the Supplementoa la Quinologia, p. 68, a botanical disputation which appearedagainst M. Zea, Mutis, and Cavanilles, this assertion is veryjustly withdrawn. Indeed the C. nitida or C. officinalis Ruiz is no other than the Cascarilla naranjanda from Santa Fe, or C. lancifolia Mut.
Since therefore four different species, the Cascarilla fina deUritusinga, which Condamine has figured, C. pubescens Vahl, C. nitida Ruiz, and C. macrocarpa Vahl, have already receivedthe name of C. officinalis, we have called the Cinchona of Uri-tusinga, in commemoration of its first discoverer, C. Condaminea. It is true that M. Ruiz, in his Supplemento a la Quinologia, gives it as his opinion, that the plant called at present Casca-rilla fina at Loxa, was not the plant described by the Frenchastronomer; but not only the unanimous testimony of all inha-bitants of Loxa, Caxanuma, and Uritusinga, speaks against this,but also Jussieu’s Hortus Siccus at Paris. M. Bonpland hascarefully compared our C. Condaminea with the specimens whichwere collected by Joseph de Jussieu and La Condamine. Nodoubt remained concerning the identity of the species. The C. Condaminea, like Myristica, Caryocar amygdalife-rum, and many precious products of the tropics, is confined toa very small space, and it has been hitherto most imperfectlydescribed. No botanists, neither Ruiz and Pavon, nor Tafalla,nor Nee, nor Hänke, nor Mutis, have observed it before us atits place of growth. The following may be considered as im-perfect figures of the C. Condaminea: Mem. de l’Acad. de1738, p. 114.; Lamarck Encyclopédie, pl. 164. fig. 1.; Vahl Skrivt. af Naturh. Selskabet I. tab. 1., and Lambert. Monogr. |50| tab. 1. The true character of the leaves has been missed everywhere; and it would be bold to quote these synonyms, if it werenot possible to verify them by examining the specimens whichhave served for the drawings. Our C. Condaminea grows under the 4th degree south lati-tude, on the mountainous declivity in the mean altitude be-tween 900 and 1200 toises. It requires a milder climate thanthe orange-coloured Cinchona, C. lancifolia Mut., from SantaFe. It is exposed to a mean temperature from 15 to 16 de-grees Reaumur, which is about the mean warmth of the CanaryIslands. I here insert an exact diagnosis of the C. Condaminea, whichI drew up at Gonzanama, and of which (as it remained buriedbeneath astronomical manuscripts) M. Bonpland could not availhimself in the publication of the second fasciculus of PlantæÆquinoctiales. Calyx tubulosus basi angustatus sub-5-gonus subhirsutus ore5-dentato, dentibus ovatis acuminatis patentibus. Cor. hypo-crateri-formis tubo cylindrico rubro lævissime hirto 5-gono (adbasin persæpe fisso) limbo 5-fido sæpissime 4-fido, laciniis ovatisacutis apice et margine ciliatis, vel tomentosis ciliis albis. Faux corollæ et totius tubi pars interior rubra glabra, nec ciliata. Stamina quinque, rarius tria et quatuor. In corollâ 4-fidâ sæpiusstamina quinque numeravi. Filamenta ex rubro albescentia imotubi adnata, cum eo cohærentia, tertiam tubi partem æquantia,eademque tantum tertiâ suæ longitudinis parte liberâ. Antheræ planæ lineares, parte liberâ filamenti duplo longiores. Germen rotundum subdepressum rubescens, sæpe punctatum et 5-sulca-tum. Stylus fere longitudine tubi, crassus, teres. Stigma tubumvix superans, viridescens, compressum, bifidum sæpe bipartitum. Capsula calyce coronata, oblonga, flore tertiâ parte longior, bi- |51| partibilis, striato-costata, de medio hiscens, dissepimento pa-rallelo. Semina plura compressa alâ membranaceâ crenulatâcincta. Rami cicatrisati post casum foliorum, sub-4-goni; junioresglaberrimi, subpulverulenti. Folia petiolata decussatim oppo-sita lanceolata acuta; integerrima, utrinque viridia, nullis ve-nis rubris picta, fere laurina, glaberrima, in axillis nervoruminfernè screbiculata. Glandulæ nullis pilis obsitæ, convexitatein paginâ superiori folii conspicua, venas altitudine superantes.Pagina folii inferior scrobiculum demonstrat. Petioli sæpè ru-bescentes, supernè plani, infernè teretes. Stipulæ deciduæ, ob-longæ, carinatæ. Panicula axillaris et terminalis, folio longiorfloribus brevè pedicellatis. Size of the parts in a tree flowering for the first time:—Calyx, 1\( \frac{7}{10} \) lines long; corolla, 5\( \frac{4}{10} \) lines; capsule; 8 lines long,3\( \frac{1}{2} \) lines broad; according to Parisian measure. Full-grown leavesexclusive of the petioles, 4 inches 3 lines long, and 1 inch 9 linesbroad. The young leaves frequently have a length of 5 inches,and the great breadth of 4 inches 7 lines. The C. Condaminea varies amazingly in the leaves beforethe tree comes into flower. In the shoots and very young treeswe frequently find folia latè ovata and ovato-lanceolata. Theolder the tree is, the narrower are its leaves. In great luxu-riance of growth, the little grooves frequently vanish, whichappear on the upper side of the leaf as convex glands. On verybroad leaves, in which the parenchyma is considerably extended,they are almost entirely wanting. However, even then, we al-ways meet with single folia scrobiculata upon the same branch. 2. C. lancifolia foliis lanceolatis acutis utrinque glaberri-mis. Mutis, Period. de S. Fe, p. 465. (et Flor. Bogot. Mss.) InSanta Fe it is known by the names of Quina naranjanda, Quin- |52| quina orangé, or orange-coloured Bark. Next to C. Condaminea, it is the most efficacious febrifuge of all the kinds of Cinchona;the species which M. Mutis, in his Quinologia, calls the Quinaprimitiva directamente febrifuga, because he prefers it to thethree following species, and because he thinks (what is errone-ous, however) the fine Cinchona of Uritusinga is the same speciesas Quina naranjanda of New Granada. The C. lancifolia hassmaller leaves than the others with tomentose corollas. They arealso continually smooth, when on the contrary the place of growthproduces, in the yellow and white Cinchonæ, varieties with hairyleaves. The Quina naranjanda loves a rough climate. It grows be-tween the 4th and 5th degree north lat. on mountainous decli-vities from 700 to 1500 toises high. The mean temperature ofthis place of growth is about equal with that of Rome. Itamounts to 13° Reaumur; however the Cinchona trees ascend-ing highest towards the summit of the mountains are mostly ex-posed to a temperature of from 8° to 9°. During the cold atnights, the thermometer falls in these alpine forests for hours aslow as the freezing point; however, as far as 1500 toises high nosnow falls in this latitude. The Quina naranjanda, together with the C. Condaminea, be-longs to the more scarce species. Nature herself has producedthem in the kingdom of New Granada in a much smaller num-ber than those of the yellow and red Cinchonæ, which latterones form here and there almost closely-connected shrubberies. C. lancifolia, on the contrary, stands always single; and whatis to be regretted in so valuable a produce is, that it does notincrease so easily by shoots from the root, as the C. cordifolia and C. oblongifolia. In the Monographs of Vahl and Lambert, nomention is made of the species called Naranjanda of Santa Fe. An |53| indisputable synonym on the contrary is Cinchona angustifolia Ruiz, Suppl. à la Quinologia, p. 21, where an excellent figureis given. It is indeed surprising, that so exact a botanist asM. Ruiz should change the old Mutisian name C. lancifolia for C. angustifolia, since that name has previously been given by Swartz * to an Island-Cinchona with a smooth corolla and longprojecting stamens. Professor Zea thinks, and, as it appears to me, with perfectpropriety, that several species of the Flora Peruviana denotemerely different states of the Quina naranjanda, such as dependon the age, the climate, and the place of growth. The followingappear to be varieties of the C. lancifolia Mut.: 1°. C. nitidaFlor. Peruv. II. Icon. t. 191. (Ruiz, Quinol. II. p. 56.) Ruiz’s Cascarilla officinal. 2°. C. lanceolata Flor. Per. II. p. 51. and C. glabra Ruiz Quin. II. p. 64. Cascarilla lampina, of whichno figure is given. M. Zea thinks he may venture to add tothese, the C. rosea Flor. Peruv. II. Ic. 199. a species which issaid to be the most scarce in Peru, and (what agrees little withthe nature of C. lancifolia) to descend from the mountains intothe lowest regions. The Cinchona Bark so famous in Cadiz by the name of Cali-saya, and of such particular medicinal power, belongs, accord-ing to Mutis, indisputably to C. lancifolia. Ruiz considers it,in his Quinologia, as synonymous with his C. glabra. But inhis disputation against Zea, he withdraws this opinion, and as-sures us that there is no species growing in the neighbourhoodof Huanuco which produces a bark similar to the Calisaya. The name Calisaya is that of the province producing this bark,
* Flor. Ind. occ. I. p. 380. Lambert, p. 29. Pl. 9. Ruiz Supplem. à la Quinol. p. 54. P. 73 and 95.
|54| which is situated in the most southerly of Peru, in the Intenden-cia de la Paz.
The second edition of a modern French work, Alibert’s Traitéde Fièvres intermittentes, contains very exact figures of theorange-coloured Cinchona, as well as of the three following Mu-tisian species. They have been made from dried specimens, de-termined by M. Mutis, and supplied by M. Zea from his collectionduring his residence at Paris.* 3. C. cordifolia fol. orbiculato-ovatis sæpe subcordatis subtustomentosis supra pubescentibus, Mut. Mss. Quina amarilla,Quinquina jaune, yellow Bark from Santa Fe, the species, asobserved above, described by Linnæus in Syst. Nat. t. ii. ed. 12.p. 64. under the name of C. officinalis. The anthers in C. cor-difolia and C. lancifolia reach as far as the upper parts of theflower-tube; when on the contrary, in the red Cinchona (C. ob-longifolia) they are deeply hidden in the middle of the tube. C. cordifolia has two varieties. Var. β foliis vix cordatis utrin-que glabris. γ foliis utrinque hirsutis. By the common peo-ple, in the kingdom of New Granada, it is called Velvet Bark.It grows under the 4th degree North latitude, in heights be-twixt 900 and 1440 toises. Cordate leaves occur but seldom:however, almost every branch exhibits some of them. C. cor-difolia Mut. is, according to Bonpland’s examination, identicalwith C. pubescens Vahl, as proved by Jussieu’s collection, fromwhich Vahl received his specimen. Joseph Jussieu had collect-ed, in 1738, this species of Cinchona and C. Condaminea in theforests of Loxa. The C. ovata Flor. Peruv. II. t. 195. Cascarilla pallida Ruiz, Quinol. Art. 7. p. 74. called in the neighbourhood of
* Some of these figures are evidently copied from those in Flora Peruviana.Edit.
|55| Pozuzo Pala de Guallerata, is likewise a synonym of C. cor-difolia Mut. Ruiz and Pavon themselves have latterly acknow-ledged this identity.*
The C. hirsuta Flor. Peruv. II. Ic. 192. Cascarillo delgado,or C. tenuis Ruiz, Quinol. II. p. 56. is, according to Zea, avariety of C. cordifolia Mut. Does C. purpurea Flor. Per. II.t. 193. or Cascarilla morado Ruiz, Quinol. Art. v. p. 67. alsobelong here? This species varies surprisingly in its leaves, andon one and the same tree too. 4. C. oblongifolia foliis oblongis acuminatis glabris, fila-mentis brevissimis, antheris infra medium tubi latentibus. Mut.Mss. Quina roxa, Quinquina rouge de Santa Fe, differt a C. lan-cifoliâ, 1°. foliis latioribus, majoribus oblongis nec lanceolatis;2°. antheris haud in summo tubi latentibus. It grows under the 5th degree North lat. in heights from 600to 1300 toises, and is particularly common in the neighbourhoodof Mariquita, a small town, which was for a long time the seatof M. Mutis’s botanical expedition. It frequently bears muchlarger fruit than the white Cinchona, C. ovalifolia, for whichreason it would deserve the name of macrocarpa with more pro-priety than the latter one. Its bark is less efficacious than thatof C. Condaminea and C. lancifolia, yet more so than the yel-low Cinchona, (C. cordifolia.) It is more stimulating, for weakconstitutions, in inflammatory diseases frequently dangerous, butthe more beneficial when applied externally in diseases of themuscles, suppurating and sphacelous ulcers. The yellow Cinchona, Cascarilla amarilla Quinol. Art. vi.p. 71. or C. magnifolia Flor. Per. II. Ic. 196. which, on ac-
* Supplem. à la Quinol. p. 18.
|56| count of the fragrant and orange-flower smell of its blossoms, iscalled in Peru, Flor. de Azahar, and in Popayan, Palo de re-queson,* is, according to the latter confessions of Ruiz, iden-tical with C. oblongifolia Mut. or with the red Cinchona ofSanta Fe.
5. C. ovalifolia fol. ellipticis supra glaberrimis subtus pu-bescentibus antheris in parte tubi superiori latentibus filamentisvix ullis. Mut. Mss. Quina blanca, Quinquina blanc: White Cinchona of SantaFe. Var. β fol. utrinque pubescentibus.γ. fol. utrinque lævibus. Both varieties, particularly the first, have frequently a corollawith 6 or 7 divisions, and 6 or 7 stamens. It grows under the 3d to the 6th degree North lat. in heightsfrom betwixt 700 and 1400 toises. The variety with smooth leavesis frequent near San Martha. The Cinchona macrocarpa Vahl.(Lambert, p. 22. t. 3.) is a true synonym of this, acknowledged by Mutis and Ruiz themselves. Amongst the Cinchonæ with hairycorollas it is the largest-flowering one of all. It must not, how-ever, be confounded with C. grandiflora Flor. Peruv. II. p. 54. (Cosmibuena obtusifolia Flor. Peruv. III. t. 198.) having a quitesmooth corolla. 6. C. brasiliensis foliis oblongis acuminatis, venis subtus pu-bescentibus paniculâ terminali, tubo calycis longitudine. Willd. Mss. A very small-flowering species, for which we are indebted, asobserved already, to Count Hoffmannsegg, together with Aublet’s
* Period. de Santa Fe, p. 335. Suppl. p. 18.
|57| and Lambert’s C. longiflora from French Guiana, the only Cin-chona which grows on the easterly coast of the South American continent. Nothing decisive is known about the height of itsplace of growth; but as it has been sent from the neighbour-hood of the town of Gran Para, at the mouth of the Amazon river,and as in this region there are only low hills found, we are allowedto suppose that C. Brasiliensis belongs to the hot regions.
The character of this species by M. Willdenow, tube of the corol-la the length of the calyx, distinguishes this Cinchona from everyone hitherto described. Throat of the corollæ hairy; hairs few,short, appressed, situated on the interior surface of the corollinelaciniæ. 7. C. excelsa corollâ pubescente, filamentis e medio tubi na-scentibus, antheris exsertis, foliis oblongis subtus pubescentibus. Roxb. Plant. of the Coast of Coromandel, ii. t. 106. The only Cinchona hitherto discovered on the continent of the ancient world, about whose medicinal use and its bitterno trials have however as yet been made. It has very smallgreenish-white flowers, and of all Cinchonæ the largest leaves,sometimes one foot long and five inches broad. The C. excelsa (Bundarvo of the Felinga Indians) grows inthe mountain chain of the Circars, which runs along the north-easterly coast of the great peninsula of Hindostan. Retzius * has at an earlier date, from accounts communicated to himby König, mentioned a Cinchona which grows in Malacca, op-posite to the coast of Coromandel, and which produces the ge-nuine terra japonica, called Cotta Cambar, a vegetable produce,which for a long time was erroneously ascribed to Mimosa spi-cata Pluk. Might not this Cinchona from Malacca be a diffe-rent species from C. excelsa?
* Observ. Bot. fasc. iv. p. 6.
|58| B. Cinchonæ corollis glaberrimis. a. staminibus inclusis. 8. C. grandiflora, tubo corollæ longissimo, fol. lanceolato-oblongis utrinque glabris. I have retained the former name of the Flor. Per. M. Ruiz calls this species at present Cosmibuena obtusifolia. (Flor. Per. vol. iii.) It is identical with C. longiflora Mut., a name whichwould cause confusion, since Lambert enumerates as C. longi-flora the Island-Cinchona staminibus longe exsertis, described as C. Caribæa in Journ. de Phys. Oct. 1790. It is fond of warm regions, and descends from the mountainsin heights from two and three hundred toises. It grows in re-gions whose mean temperature is from 18 to 19 degrees. 9. C. parviflora foliis ovatis glabris, filamentis basi dilatatiset pubescentibus. Mut. Mss. It has the smallest fruit of all Cinchonæ. b. staminibus exsertis. 10. C. dissimiliflora foliis cordato-oblongis glaberrimis, limbocorollæ tubo longiori, capsulis sublinearibus angustissimis. Mut. Mss. Next to C. longiflora Lamb. the only species of the con-tinent which has stamina exserta. Grows in heights betwixt200 and 700 toises in warm regions. 11. C. Caribæa Swartz. 12. C. longiflora Lamb. 13. C. lineata Vahl. 14. C. floribunda Swartz. |59| 15. C. angustifolia Swartz. 16. C. brachycarpa Vahl. These six latter species grow all in the West-India Islands,and love a temperature of from 17 to 22 degrees R. 17. C. corymbifera Forster. Native of the Friendly Islands. 18. C. Philippica, discovered near Manilla by Nec. I do not venture to assert that all Cinchonæ hitherto knownare comprehended within the eighteen species arranged here. Ihave merely wished to enumerate those which are known to me,partly in their natural state partly from good figures, and whichto me appear indisputably specific from each other. C. acuti-folia, C. micrantha, C. glandulifera, C. dichotoma, C. (Cosmi-buena) acuminata, and C. spinosa, deserve a closer investigation.The genus might perhaps increase to twenty-four species.