130 H. TRIMEN—HERMANN’S CEYLON HERBARIUM 
and a fifth volume of drawings*. He at once set to work at its 
examination; and after two years’ labour produced in 1747 the 
‘Flora Zeylanica, which he dedicated to Giinther. In this book 
Linneus has classified all the plants in the herbarium which he 
could determine (429 in number) under their generat; and 
these are duly arranged in accordance with his sexual system. 
Under each species he refers to the names in the ‘Museum,’ and 
at the end he gives lists of those names (228 in number) which he 
was unable (in nearly all cases from the absence of specimens) to 
refer to any genus. The whole number of plants enumerated is 
thus 657. In the herbarium itself he has added to Hermann's 
labels a reference to the number of the species in his own * Flora 
Zeylanica.’ . 
At this period of Linnæus’s career he had not yet initiated 
his binomial system of nomenclature; thus no species in the 
‘ Flora Zeylanica’ are named in the modern sense, but are only 
referred to their Linnæan genera. When, however, in 1753 
that really epoch-making book the ‘Species Plantarum’ was 
published, in which specific names were systematically employed, 
Linnsus was careful to quote under them the numbers of the 
“Fl. Zeylan., and thus the specimens of Hermann’s herbarium 
become types for many of Linneus’s species. It is this of course 
which gives to this interesting collection its great scientific value, 
and renders it an important supplement to the herbarium of 
Linneus himself in the possession of this Society; especially as the 
large majority of the species in Hermann’s herbarium are unre- 
presented in Linneus’s own collection. It is this consideration 
mainly which has led me to spend some time in a re-investigation 
of its contents ; and the results of this examination I now offer 
to the Society which bears Linnzus’s name. 
As is well known, Hermann’s herbarium is now in the Bota- 
nical Department of the British Museum. Its history since it 
left Linnzus’s hands is briefly as follows :—From Günther it 
passed into the possession of Count A. G. Moltket, at whose 
death it was purchased by Prof. Treschow of Copenhagen. The 
latter sold it to Sir J. Banks for £75 $; and it passed, with the 
* See the Preface to Fl. Zeylan. p. 17. 
t In Linnzus’s own copy of the ‘Mus. Zeylan. in the Societys Library, he 
has entered in the margin against each name the genus to which he referred it. 
f Rottböll, Descript. p. 49. 
$ MS. Note by Dryander in the Herbarium. 
