180 Dr. Francis Hamiuron’s Commentary 
PrEniN Kara, p. 51. tab. 24. 
In the plate the specific name is by mistake Perim. Commeline in his 
observation justly remarks, that this Kara is a quite different species (genus 
in the Linnzan sense) from the former, and that it is not an Olive, as the Por- 
tuguese and Dutch pretend. Botanically speaking, no doubt, he is right; 
but the fruit of the Perin Kara has a resemblance so strong to an Olive, both 
in appearance and in several qualities, that it must strike every one; and 
accordingly the fruit of the O/ive by the Bengalese is called Jo/payi, the name 
which they give to the Perin Kara. Both Commeline in the Flora Malabarica, 
and Ray in his History of Plants, called it “ Olea sylvestris Malabarica fructu 
dulci," a name by no means appropriate, as it is as much cultivated in India as 
the Olive is in Europe. Ray afterwards in the Dendrologia is said to have 
abandoned the idea of its being an Olea, and called it a Prunus, which was 
no improvement. 
Plukenet in the Mantissa (175.) refers it, with doubt however, to page 355, 
line 26, of the dimagestum, which is, * Sorbi Alpine (forte) species Arbor Ame- 
ricana durioribus serratis foliis ex Insula Jamaice,” which, he says, is repre- 
sented in 7. 318. f. 1. of the Phytographia; but this figure seems to represent 
a Justicia, and there is certainly here some typographical error: £. 318. f. 2. 
has a considerable resemblance to the foliage of the Perin Kara, and may be 
that which Plukenet meant; but if it is a Sorbus, it can have no affinity to the 
Perin Kara, and at any rate, as a production of America, it is probably not 
the same plant. 
Burman (Thes. Zeyl. 93. t. 40.) considered the Perin Kara as the same with 
the Weralu of the Ceylonese, which Herman took for a Laurus; but Burman 
properly constituted it a new genus, and called the plant * Elaiocarpos folio 
Lauri serrato, floribus spicatis," and both are no doubt of the same genus; but 
I doubt much of their belonging to one species, for he says, “ nucleum cris- 
pum;" but that of the Perin Kara is smooth ; and this has rarely four divi- 
sions in the flower, while in the plant of Burman such seems to be the common 
number. Linnzeus in the Flora Zeylanica (206.) changed the Elaiocarpos of 
Burman into Eleocarpus, and properly rejected the synonyma of Plukenet and 
Sloane, quoted by Burman, but he does not doubt of the Weralu and Perin 
