Travels in Peru and India: While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
History
Travels in Peru and India: While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.
Markham, Clements R. (Clements Robert), Sir
Cinchona; India -- Description and travel; Peru -- Description and travel
Finding the chinchona-plants in so deplorable a condition, one of
Dr. Junghuhn's first measures was to transplant them from Tjibodas
to a more suitable site on the Malawar mountains, a very delicate
and hazardous operation, which was, however, successfully performed:
in 1857 plants both of _C. Calisaya_ and of the worthless species
blossomed, and in 1858 bore fruit. Dr. Junghuhn found that the latter
could not be the _C. ovata_ as named by M. Hasskarl; but he was
himself equally mistaken in naming it _C. Lucumæfolia_, from a fancied
resemblance to that species of Pavon.[106] The great mistake of the
Dutch has been in propagating this worthless species, and spending
vast sums of money on its cultivation, tempted by finding that its
nature was hardy, and that it required less care than the delicate _C.
Calisaya_.
In 1858 several of the plants sickened from the attacks of destructive
insects (_Bostrichus_ or _Dermestes_), not larger than the head of a
pin, which pierced horizontally into the bark and wood of the stem
and branches, where they laid their eggs and died. Dr. Junghuhn
conjectures that they were imported from Peru; as they are not natives
of the Java forests, and I found these boring insects in the wood of
chinchona-trees in the forests of Caravaya. Twenty-nine trees were thus
attacked in Java, and died.
Dr. Junghuhn established his new plantations on the slopes of the
Malawar mountains, where he has found that the _C. Calisaya_ is much
more sensitive than his so-called _C. Lucumæfolia_; and that very
slight differences in temperature, in elevation, in light, in shade,
and in moisture, exercise a very evident influence on the former, while
the latter remain quite unaffected by them. He considers that the best
conditions for the growth of _C. Calisaya_ on the Malawar mountains
(between latitude 7° and 8° S.) are good loose forest soil and moderate
shade, at an elevation from 5000 to 5700 feet above the sea. The _C.
Calisayas_, when they receive light only on their crowns, and are
surrounded by the dark wood, have a rapidly rising, slender, tall stem,
devoid of side branches; whilst, when they stand on clear open spots,
they grow much stronger in width and thickness, but are shorter, and
have numerous side branches.
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