on the Hurt us Mulabaviats, Pari I. 541 



adopted in the Hortta Kewtnsis (iv. 354.), where we have ;i West 



Indian and an East Indian Indigo. 



Under the proper Latin name, fndu-um, Rumphius (Herb. 



A?nb. v. 2 ( 20. f. 80.) has given us a true description, and not ;i 

 bad figure, of the plant producing Indigo, such as i- cultivated 

 every where in India, and, as he shows, the produce originally 



of Gujerat ; and he says that he knows only of one species. 1 1< 

 had indeed heard of another, which grows wild (st/vestro), but 

 he had never seen it. There are indeed plenty of wild Indigqfi 

 rat, and some of them not unlike the cultivated kind ; but In- 

 digo, at least on any considerable scale, was never / believe 

 made from any of them 



The elder Burman {Tins. Ztj/l. 69.) followed Rumphius in 

 making only one species of the Indigo plant, and reduced to this 

 all the synonyma referring to such a production, and of course 

 included both the Ameriof Rhecde and the Indirum of Rumphius, 

 as well as the kind cultivated in America. I have however Little 

 doubt that the Ameri is some wild Indigo/era, which was brought 

 by mistake to Rheede, Indigo not being a production of Malabar 



Rumphius was not a favourite with Linnaeus; and in the Flora 

 Zcylanica (273.) is not quoted for the Indigo plant. But although 

 Linnaeus quotes the Ameri, he evidently meant the Indicum of 

 Rumphius, from his specific character, Indigofera kguminibtti 

 arcuatis incanis, racemis folio brevioribus, by which the Indigo 

 plant may at once be recognised. Linniuus here gives us only 

 one Indigo plant; nor is any change for the worse made by the 

 younger Burman {Fl. Ind. 170.), only he adds as a variety the 

 plant of Plukenet (Phyt. t. 165. /. 5.), and from Linnaeus gives 

 the specific name /. tinctoria. 



Although the terms tiil and Anil were used by the old writer- 

 as synonymous (the former being the name of the Indigo plant 

 in the Bengalese and Ilindwi dialects, while the latter seems to 



vol. xni. 4 a be 



