The upper surface of these leaves is of a beautiful green tint; the lower surface of a paler green, except, however, near the midrib. At this point, there is a strip of green darker than the rest, which becomes brown in the withered leaves. [Illustration: LEAF OF COCA OF COLOMBIA, NATURAL SIZE.] The flowers, small, regular and hermaphrodite, white or greenish yellow, are found either alone or in groups in little bunches of cyme at the axil of the leaves or bracts, which take their place on certain branches. The disposition into cymes is that most commonly met with. They are supported by a slender pedicel, somewhat inflated at the top, the length of which does not exceed one centimetre. [Illustration: NERVURES OF THE LEAF OF PERUVIAN COCA, SEEN BY TRANSMITTED LIGHT. NATURAL SIZE.] The sepals, joined at the base and lanceolated, are of a green tint with a whitish top. The petals, half a centimetre in length, pointed, concave inside and yellowish white, exhale a rather pleasant odor. They are provided with an exterior appendage, of the same color and of the same consistency, surmounted on each side with an ascending fimbriated leaf, irregularly triangular in shape. The stamens, at first joined in a tube for one-third of their length, afterward separate into white subulated strings, provided with an obtuse ovoid anther which extends a little beyond the petals. The ovary is ovoid in shape and green in color, thickening at the top into a yellowish glandular tissue. The style which rises above it separates into three diverging branches, provided with orbicular papilliform bodies at their extremity, obliquely inserted into the slender patina. [Illustration: Seeds of Coca.] The fruit is a drupe of an elongated ovoid form, being a little more than a centimetre in length, of a reddish color when fresh, and having a tender, thickish pulp inclosing a seed. This seed shows longitudinal furrows and alternate vertical projections which make its division irregularly hexagonal. When the fruit is dried, the skin assumes a brownish color, shrivels up and molds itself on the protuberances and irregularities of the seed. CULTIVATION OF COCA. _Erythroxylon Coca_ appears to have come originally from Peru, and from there its cultivation was carried into Bolivia, Ecuador, New Grenada, and Brazil, in a word, throughout the entire torrid zone of South America.