240 Dr. Francis HaMrrTowN's Commentary 
piades of his brother Caspar, all of which synonyma belong to the 
Egyptian species, of which this figure may be a good representa- 
tion, although he has by mistake quoted it for the Indian kind. 
The elder Burman makes matters no better. The Ericu he 
calls Apocynum indicum, maximum, floribus amplis, Ianthinis, obso- 
letis (Thes. Zeyl. 24.), joining with it the Beid el Ossar of Egypt, 
and nearly all the synonyma given, right or wrong, by Plukenet 
to his Egyptian, Syrian and Indian kinds; only excluding the 
Bel Ericu, which he calls Apocynum indicum, sylvestre, inodorum, 
siliquosum, seminibus papposis, floribus albis amplis (Thes. Zeyl. 25.). 
By mistake he seems to have called this the Idda of the Cey- 
lonese ; for that he really meant the Bel Ericu there is no doubt 
from his quotation of Commeline : but Linnæus considered the 
Idda as his Nerium foliis lanceolato-ovatis, ramis divaricatis (Fl. 
Zeyl. 109.), which has become the N. divaricatum of Willdenow 
(Sp. PI.3.1236.). On this account Burman's plant is now quoted 
as a Nerium ; although if Linnzus had observed that the Idda 
was the Apocynum zeylanicum indicum frutescens, Nerii flore can- 
didissimo of Hermann's Paradisus, and not the Apocynum erectum 
incanum latifolium, Malabaricum, floribus omnino albis of the same 
work, which is quoted by Burman, he would have discovered the 
latter author's error respecting the Idda, and would not have 
removed Burman’s plant from the Bel Ericu to join it with a Ne- 
rium, or more probably a Tabernæmontana, which I suspect the 
Iddais. See my commentary on the Curutu Pala ( Hort. Mal. i. 
83.) *. 
In the Flora Zeylanica (112.), excellent in general on syno- 
nyma, Linneus made little improvement respecting the Ericu, 
joining it with the Beid el Ossar of Egypt, the Ericu americana 
of Seba, and the figure erroneously referred to it by Plukenet in 
the Phytographia, as already mentioned; and thus probaby 
* Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. p. 519. 3 
united 
