^ 



_«^ 



■ ^ 



-It 



EARLY CAPE BOTANISTS AND COLLECTORS, 



37 



(ccxiv-ccxxvii) 



(t 



ccxiv-ccxviii are almost 



exclusively (Jape plantri; tlie.se also occur hero and there in other volumes. 

 A full description ot* the contents of the collection will he published in the 

 history of the Sloane Herbarium : some information about it will be I'ound 

 in Richardson's 'Correspondence' (pp. 104, 1H9), but Shenird's estimate of 

 its importance and extent g-reatly undervalues it. I do not know how it 

 came into Sloane's possession, nor by whom the plants contained in it were 

 collected. Kiggelaer himself was never at the Cape, nor^ indeed so far as 

 we know, out of Holland ; one volum(3 (ccxvii) is stated on the title-page to 

 have been sent him by Wilhelm van der Stell, Governor of the Cape, in 

 1700. This volume is the most interesting of the series; it was apparently 

 collected by Van der Stell himself or by his direction — perhaps by Hertog 

 (see p. 35) — and the plants^ many of which are named and described by 

 Solander in his MSS. — as is the case with those in other volumes— are 

 ascribed to him and not to Kiggelaer. The specimens, which are good, are 

 mostly Ericaceje or plants of like habit ; among them are authentic examples 



E 



tub 



id 



erciuat 



Tl 



margaritacea 

 incJ>/ta, Sol.) ( 

 hamnea (f. 22) 



hrevifolia (!'. 3i))j and E. 

 plant on which Solander 



10 history of these four plants affords such striking evidence of the 

 unique value of the historical collections in the National Herbarium that 

 I propose to set it forth in some detail. 

 TItamnea uni//ora, 



locus/' Solander MS. 



The genus Thamnea — " ©ayufo?, deusus fruetibus 



Branla U}djl< 



Sp. PI. 199, remainetl 



unpublished until it was taken up by A. Brongniart in his " Mcmoii-e sur la 

 famille des Bruniacees" published in Ann. Sci. Kat. l'''^ Scr. viii.380 (1826) 



The name had been incidentally cited among those of other Bruniacece by 

 Kobert Brown in AbeFs Narrative (1818) p. 37-1 ; and it was Brown who 



specimens in Herb. Banks which Solander had 



showed Brongniart the 



transferred from Herb. Sloane ccxvii. f. 22, where the bulk still remains. 

 Brongniart names Masson as the collector, but the type, as is shown by the 

 Solander MSS., is from Van der Stell, and it is to this that Solander's 

 name on the Bankslan sheet applies ; specimens from Masson were added 

 later, and are, in part, Tittmannia laxa^ Brongn. It does not appear that 

 Brongniart consulted Solander's MS. ; his description is not based upon it, 

 and he makes no reference to the Banksian specimens of another plant 



Audouinia 



(D 



which Solander 



named and described in MS. and placed in the same genus. 



Linnffius based his Brunia nodijiora upon the " Brunia floiibus solitariis " 

 of the 'Hortus Cliffottianus ' (p. 71) and on a plant described and figured by 

 Plukenet (Almagest, p. 130, t. 279^ f. 2) : the specimens corresponding 

 with both of these are in the National Herbarium. How little the 



