504 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



like each other, and to exclude several plants that have a strong 

 resemblance to those possessed of the mark on which the gene- 

 ric character is founded. Accordingly, scarcely any two bo- 

 tanists are agreed about the new genera separated from the Phyl- 

 lanthus and C rot on ; and some, not without strong reasons, seem 

 inclined not only to replace them where they stood, and even to 

 join several genera that Linnaeus himself had separated upon 

 grounds perhaps no better than what have induced later botanists 

 to encroach on his arrangement. 



The name Phyllanthus, given to the Nilicamaram by Linnaeus, 

 was founded on the supposition that the leaves were merely pinnae 

 of a compound leaf, and the flowers, being in the axils of these 

 pinna?, of course were supported by the rachis of the leaf. In 

 some of the species, this supposition of Linnaeus is certainly con- 

 firmed by the appearance of stipulae at the junction of the small 

 branches that have leaves, with the larger that are bare : but 

 many species want this mark ; nor do I know of any common 

 character drawn from the fructification, by which the two kinds 

 could be distinguished. Many botanists talk of the species pro- 

 vided with such stipulae as having pinnated leaves, and of the 

 species wanting these stipulae as having simple leaves : but they 

 do so with little strictness ; and, on the authority of Jussieu, I 

 doubt much of these small branches which support the leaves 

 being proper common petioles, as, when the leaves change, these 

 little branches do not fall off, but produce new branches, each 

 of which acquires supports like stipulae. 



Willdenow and the author of Hortus Kewensis have removed 

 the Phyllanthus from the order of Triandria, where Linnaeus 

 placed it, to the Monadelphia, to which no doubt some species 

 belong ; but they do not confine themselves to such alone, 

 the Phyllanthus Emblica belonging to the Monoecia Syngenesia. 

 Further, as its fruit is what I would call a drupa, and not a cap- 

 sule, 



