280 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
ACHRAS SUBSTITUTED FOR SAPOTA. 
The Linnwan genus Achras was based directly on Plumier’s plate of 
Sapota, which is the sole reference in all the editions of the Genera 
Plantarum. In the first edition of the Species Plantarum, Achras 
is represented by a single species, Achras zapota, and the first refer- 
ence under this is to Plumier’s mention of the ovate-fruited form of 
Sapota, the form shown in the plate. Thus both the genus Achras 
and its type species, Achras zapota, are definitely established on Plu- 
mier’s description and figures of the sapodilla. This feature of the 
case seems to have escaped the attention of Radlkofer and others 
who have dealt with the taxonomy of the Sapotaceae. 
The same specific name, though with a different initial letter, was 
applied to the sapote in 1760 by Jacquin! under the genus Sider- 
oxylum. The accompanying descriptive phrase, ‘‘Siderorylum 
inerme; calycibus decaphyllis,”” undoubtedly alludes to the compound 
calyx or involucre, which is stili used by botanists as a distinctive 
generic character of the sapote. Yet it can not be claimed that 
Jacquin had at that time any intention of separating the sapote from 
the sapodilla, for the latter tree is not listed in the Enumeratio. The 
only citation given by Jacquin under his Siderorylum sapota is of 
Sloane’s plate of ‘‘The Mammee Sapota tree” of Jamaica. Jacquin 
may have borrowed his specific name from the first edition of the 
Species Plantarum, where Sloane was cited, as well as Plumier. 
CONFUSION OF SPECIES BY LINNZAUS. 
When the second edition of the Species Plantarum was prepared, 
Linneus had become aware of the existence of more than one kind 
of sapote in the West Indies and undertook to distinguish between 
them in the works of his predecessors. The sapote received a new 
specific name, Achras mammosa, for Jacquin’s Stderorylum sapota, 
if not already a synonym of the Linnean Achras zapota, would have 
become a homonym if transferred to the genus Achras. References 
to Jacquin’s species and to Sloane’s plate were the real basis of the 
new Linnean species, but a reference to Plumier was also included, 
and this has been the occasion of much confusion. 
Plumier had mentioned two forms of fruit, one turbinate and the 
other ovate, under his genus Sapota, and Linneus, assuming that these 
were the two fruits that were to be assigned to different species, took 
Plumier’s ovate fruit to be the same as Sloane’s ‘‘mammee sapota.” 
As a result of this mistake the same reference to Plumier’s ovate 
sapodilla that had been given under Achras zapota in the first edition 
of the Species Plantarum was transferred in the second edition to the 
new species, Achras mammosa, while Plumier’s reference to the 
1 Enum. Pl. Carib. 15. 
