[1565] There is an Indian root figured as Palo de Culebra by Acosta (Tractado de las Drogas ... de las Indias Orientales, 1578, cap. lv.) which is astonishingly like the drug in question. He describes it moreover as having a sweet smell of melilot. The plant he says is called in Canarese Duda sali. The figure is reproduced in Antoine Colin’s translation, but not in that of Clusius.
[1566] Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ. lxv. 189.
[1567] Taken from excellent specimens obligingly sent to us from India by Dr. L. W. Stewart and Mr. Broughton.
[1568] Pharm. of India, 457; also Chem. Gazette, 1843. 378.
[1569] Hence the specific name gigantea.
[1570] The botanical distinctions between the two species may be stated thus:—
C. procera, corolla cup-shaped, petals somewhat erect, flower-buds spherical, appendages of corona with a blunt upward point. See Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 25 (1877).
C. gigantea, corolla opening flat, flower-buds bluntly conical or oblong, appendages of corona rounded.
[1571] Information for which we are indebted to Dr. Rice.
[1572] Ibn Baytar, translated by Sontheimer, ii. (1842) 193.