Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury.

Date:: 1879

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger, and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$same fact, in consequence of which he regarded the tree as distinct from that of Loureiro, naming it Illiciuvi Japonicum, a name he changed in 1837 to 1. religiosum. Baillon,1 while admitting certain differences between the fruits of the Chinese and Japanese trees, holds them to constitute hut one species, and the same view is taken by Miquel.2 The star-anise of commerce is produced in altitudes of 2500 metres in the north-western parts of the province of Yunnan in South-western China where the tree, which attains a height of 12 to 15 feet, grows in abundance.3 The fruits of the Japanese variety of the tree are not collected, and the Chinese drug alone is in use even in Japan. History—Notwithstanding its striking appearance, there is no evidence that star-anise found its way to Europe like other Eastern spices during the middle ages. Concerning its ancient use in China, the only fact we have found recorded is, that during the Sung dynasty, A.D. 970—1127, star-anise was levied as tribute in the southern part of Kien-chow, now Yen-ping-fu, in Fokien.4 Star-anise was brought to England from the Philippines by the voyager Candish, about A.D. 1588. Clusius obtained it in London from the apothecary Morgan and the druggist Garet, and described it in 1601.5 The drug appears to have been rare in the time of Pomet, who states (1694) that the Dutch use it to flavour their beverages of tea and “sorbec.”6 In those times it was brought to Europe by way of Russia, and was thence called Cardamomv/m. Siberiense, or Annis de tiibe vie. Description—The fruit of Illicium anisatum is formed of 8 one- seeded carpels, originally upright, but afterwards spread into a radiate whorl and united in a single row round a short central column which proceeds from an oblique pedicel. When ripe they are woody and split longitudinally at the upturned ventral suture, so that the shining seed becomes visible. This seed, which is elliptical and somewhat flattened, stands erect in the carpel; it is truncated on the side adjoining the central column, and is there attached by an obliquely-rising funicle. The upper edge of the seed is keeled, the lower rounded. The boat- shaped carpels, to the number of 8, are attached to the column through their whole height, but adhere to each other only slightly at the base ; the upper or split side of each carpel occupies a nearly horizontal posi- tion. The carpels are irregularly wrinkled, especially below, and are more or less beaked at the apex; their colour is a rusty brown. Internally they are of a brighter colour, smooth, and with a cavity in the lower half corresponding to the shape of the seed. The cavity is formed of a separate wall, \ millim. thick, which, as well as the testa of the seed, distinctly exhibits a radiate structure. The small embryo lies next the hilum in the soft albumen, which is covered by a dark 1 Adansonia, viii. 9 ; Hist, des Plantes, Magnoliacdes, 1868. 154. 2 Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugdun. Batav. ii. (1865—1866). 257. 3 Thorel, Notes Mddicales du voyage '/.’exploration du Mdlcong et de Cocliinchine, Paris, 1870. 31.—Gamier, Voyage d’ex- ploration en Indo-Chine II. (Paris, 1873) 439.—Rondot, Etude pratique du commerce d’exportation de la Chine, 1848. 11. 4 Bretsehneider in [Foochow] Chinese Re- corder, Jan., 1871, 220, reprinted in his * ‘ Study and Valne of Chinese Botanical Works,” Foochow, 1872, 13.—See also Hirth du Frolics, in New Remedies, New York, 1877, 181. 6 Rarior. Plant. Hist. 202. «Hist, des Drog. pt. i. liv. i. 43.$