This specimen of the Cinchona Caribæa, or Jesuits Bark of Jamaica, was communicated to the author by A. B. Lambert, esq. who raised it from seed, and with whom it has flowered for the first time in this kingdom. Opinions are various as to the time and means by which the medicinal virtues of the Peruvian bark were first discovered; but as the discovery of most very useful things is generally the effect of chance, Geoffroy’s account of it (as given in the Medical Botany of Dr. Woodville) is certainly the most natural, who states it to have been occasioned by some Cinchona trees having been blown into a pool of water, and lying there till the water became so bitter that nobody would drink it, till one of the neighbouring inhabitants being seized with a violent paroxysm of fever, and having no other water, drank of this, and was perfectly cured. He prevailed on some of his friends, who were ill, to make use of the same remedy, and it proved successful. But the use of it was little known till the year 1638, when a signal cure being performed on the Countess del Cinchon, the lady of a Spanish viceroy at Lima, (from whom it derives its generic title) it came into general use, and a large quantity of the bark was by that lady distributed amongst the Jesuits, in whose hands it increased in reputation, and was by them first introduced into Europe. The Caribæan species is said to be an excellent substitute for the Peruvian bark, and therefore a most valuable acquisition to us; as Mr. Lambert, in his description of the genus Cinchona, informs us that well grounded fears are entertained of the Peruvian species being some day lost to us, as, from the extreme decortication they have experienced, they are nearly extinct in those parts where they were formerly most abundant. [Illustration] PLATE CCCCLXXXII. DIANTHUS ALPINUS. _Alpine Pink._ CLASS VI. ORDER II. _DECANDRIA DIGYNIA._ Ten Chives. Two Pointals. GENERIC CHARACTER. CALYX. Perianthium cylindricum, tubulosum, striatum, persistens: os 5-dentatum, basi squamulis quatuor cinctum, quarum interdum duæ oppositæ, inferiores. COROLLA. Petala 5. Ungues longitudine calycis, angusti, receptaculo inserti: limbus extus planus, laminis late obtusis, crenatis. STAMINA. Filamenta decem, subulata, longitudine calycis: antheræ ovales, oblongæ, compressæ, incumbentes. PISTILLUM. Germen ovale. Styli duo, subulati, staminibus longiores. Stigmata recurvata, acuminata. PERICARPIUM. Capsula cylindrica, recta, unilocularis, quadrilateralis, apice dehiscens. SEMINA plurima, compressa, subrotunda, a receptaculo liberata. EMPALEMENT cylindrical, tubular, lined, remaining: the mouth is 5-toothed, surrounded by four squamæ at the base, or sometimes two opposite ones beneath. BLOSSOM 5 petals: the claws the length of the calyx, narrow, and inserted into the receptacle: border flat without, broadly obtuse, and notched.