raited it from feeds received from Mexico, and communicated 

 fine flowering fpecimens in February laft from his Hove at 

 Boyton. 



Mr. Pursh fufpe6led that it was the fame plant as Michaux 

 had defcribed under the name of Ipomcea macrorhiza, of which 

 he had received from Georgia both roots and feeds ; and this 

 fufpicion he has fince verified, by comparing it with a fpecimen 

 from that country, from which it differs only in the colour of 

 the flowers. On feeing the defcription and figure of the Jalap, 

 by Desfontaines, in the Annales du Mufeum d'Hiftoire 

 Naturelle, he was agreeably furprized to find that this was the 

 fame fpecies. 



The Jalap was carried from the neighbourhood of Vera Cruz to 

 Jamaica, by Dr. Houston, with the hope of its being cultivated 

 there, but was ncgleOed and loft. There is a fpecimen from 

 Kew, in the Bankfian Herbarium, where it was cultivated in 

 1778, being introduced from Paris, by M. Thou in. 



Seeds fent to Miller, by Dr. Houston, grew in the Apo- 

 thecaries Garden, and the plant is defcribed in the 6th edition of 

 the Gardiner's Dictionary, publifhed in 1733; but the leaves, 

 probably from miflake, are there faid to be lmooth. 



This fpecies is confidered by Michaux and Pursh as an 

 Ipomcea, from its large round ftigma, but it does not appear 

 to us that the genus Convolvulus can be very well divided 

 upon this ground ; for in this, and perhaps in every other 

 analogous fpecies, the ftigma is in fome degree, though obfcurely, 

 two-lobed. 



The Jalap loves a dry fandy or gravelly foil. The ftems 

 perifii every year, but the root 'is permanent and not very im- 

 patient of froft ; but, perhaps, the bed way of preferving the 

 plant, would be to take up the roots as foon as the ftems perifh, 

 and to keep them in dry land through the winter, planting them 

 in a warm dry fituation in the fpring. 



