4/8 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



it is very difficult to say to what natural order it should be re- 

 ferred. Jussieu considers it allied to the Cucurbitacece which 

 have the germen above the calyx ; but its erect woody stem, and 

 want of tendrils, seem strong objections. I think that it rather 

 comes nearer some of the Euphorbia, especially to the Jatropha, 

 several species of which, like the Papaya, when wounded, pour 

 forth a limpid juice of very peculiar qualities. The affinity with 

 the Euphorbia is confirmed by the circumstance of Linnaeus 

 having mistaken the Aleurites triloba for a Papaya, which he 

 called Posoposa. See Willdenow Sp. PL iv. 815. 



Ily, p. 25. Jig, 16. 



Linnaeus, like the older botanists from the time of Pliny at 

 least, considered this plant as a species of Arundo. These older 

 writers knew it as the vegetable which produced a stony sub- 

 stance used in medicine, and called Tabashir or Mambu ; and 

 Mambu, corrupted into Bambu, came to be the name by which 

 the tree itself was known in Europe (Plukenet^/???. 53.), although 

 it was never known by any name like this in an Indian language. 

 On the discovery that this plant could not be an Arundo, it was 

 formed into a new genus, which Retzius called Bambos, from the 

 specific name previously given by Linnaeus; but Jussieu, reject- 

 ing this ill-formed word, adopted Nastus, by which name the 

 Arundo indica is said to have been known to the Greeks. Will- 

 denow, very unwilling to adopt anything from Jussieu, and dis- 

 liking the Bambos of Linnaeus, not very tractable in the Latin 

 declinations, made a new word, Bambusa ; and M. Palisot de 

 Beauvois (Encycl. Meth. Snp. v. 494.), on observing some slight 

 differences in the flower, made two genera, Bambusa and Nas- 

 tus ; and probably some other person will make as many genera 

 as there are species; for I have observed no two species in 

 which there were not considerable differences in the flower. 



The 



