Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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How Can We Be Expected To Know Completely The Flora
Of So Vast An Extent Of Country?
But, when we recollect, that even
in Mexico no species of the genera cinchona and exostema has been
discovered,
Either in the central table-land or in the plains, we
are led to believe, that the mountainous islands of the West Indies
and the Cordillera of the Andes have peculiar floras; and that they
possess particular species of vegetation, which have neither passed
from the islands to the continent, nor from South America to the
coasts of New Spain.
It may be observed farther, that, when we reflect on the numerous
analogies which exist between the properties of plants and their
external forms, we are surprised to find qualities eminently
febrifuge in the bark of trees belonging to different genera, and
even different families.* (* It may be somewhat interesting to
chemistry, physiology, and descriptive botany, to consider under
the same point of view the plants which have been employed in
intermittent fevers with different degrees of success. We find
among rubiaceous plants, besides the cinchonas and exostemas, the
Coutarea speciosa or Cayenne bark, the Portlandia grandiflora of
the West Indies, another portlandia discovered by M. Sesse at
Mexico, the Pinkneia pubescens of the United States, the berry of
the coffee-tree, and perhaps the Macrocnemum corymbosum, and the
Guettarda coccinea; among magnoliaceous plants, the tulip-tree and
the Magnolia glauca; among zanthoxylaceous plants, the Cuspare of
Angostura, known in America under the name of Orinoco bark, and the
Zanthoxylon caribaeum; among leguminous plants, the geoffraeas, the
Swietenia febrifuga, the Aeschynomene grandiflora, the Caesalpina
bonducella; among caprifoliaceous plants, the Cornus florida and
the Cuspa of Cumana; among rosaceous plants, the Cerasus virginiana
and the Geum urbanum; among amentaceous plants, the willows, oaks,
and birch-trees, of which the alcoholic tincture is used in Russia
by the common people; the Populus tremuloides, etc.; among
anonaceous plants, the Uvaria febrifuga, the fruit of which we saw
administered with success in the Missions of Spanish Guiana; among
simarubaceous plants, the Quassia amara, celebrated in the feverish
plains of Surinam; among terebinthaceous plants, the Rhus glabrum;
among euphorbiaceous plants, the Croton cascarilla; among composite
plants, the Eupatorium perfoliatum, the febrifuge qualities of
which are known to the savages of North America.
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