on the Ilortus Malabaricus, Part I. 489 



the Sanscrita, written Vadoe by Rheede, and in the vulgar dia- 

 lects corrupted to Bar, Bat, Barga, &c. ; while the Pippala of 

 the Sanscrita is the Ficus religiosa. From the vast size to which 

 the Peralu grows ; from its great celebrity all over India : from 

 its being found near almost every village as a sacred plant, I 

 have no doubt of its being the Ficus indica of the Greeks and 

 Romans, and it is the Banyan tree of modern travellers. The 

 other trees quoted by European botanists for this celebrated 

 plant being rare, confined to a few woods, and altogether un- 

 noticed and unknown to the bulk of the natives, I applaud 

 Dr. Roxburgh for rejecting the barbarous specific bengalensis, 

 and for restoring to the Peralu the ancient appellation of Ficus 

 indica (Ilort. Ben g. 65). 



Folia basi sinu parvo cordata vel retusa, apice obtusa, subtus 

 saepe subtomentosa, semper pilosa, subquinquenervia : nervi 

 enim plerumque quinque supra basin coalescunt, et pneter 

 eos ad basin sunt duo minuti. Fici globosi, pubescentes, 

 magnitudine nucis moschata*, calyce vel involucro triphyllo 

 arete cincti. 



B.UPARITI, p. 51. fig. 29- 



In the Flora Zeylanica (258.) Linnaeus annexing numerous 

 synonyma, and probably with tolerable accuracy, called this 

 Hibiscus joliis cordatis integerrimis, which in the Species Plant a- 

 rum became the Hibiscus populneus ; and at the same time several 

 changes were made in the synonyma, not for the better, as a 

 doubt arises concerning the plant meant, by adding the Novella 

 litorea (Herb. Amb. ii. 224. t. 74.), which I consider as a diffe- 

 rent species, from the form of the fruit, that opens in five valves, 

 and from its growing only on the sea-shore. Both however con- 

 tinue united not only in AVilldenow and the Encyclopedic, where 

 the Bupariti continues a Hibiscus, but even in Gartner (ii. 253), 



who 



