on the Chrysanthemum Indicum of Linn a us. .>;; 



which appear to have been known in I lolland many yean before 

 they became objects of attention to modern gardeners. 1 cannot 

 conceive how plants so easy to cultivate could have been lost : 

 but no trace of them existed in the Dutch gardens when they 

 appeared again in Europe. The modern writers, who have 

 considered the whole as belonging to one species, have erred in 

 treating them as actually the same. Persoonf alone excepted : 

 he has avoided this error by keeping the Purple Chinese Chry- 

 santhemum (the only one he knew) distinct from the plant of 

 Linnams, though under the same name, seeming to be of opi- 

 nion that the great difference between them u;h effected by 

 skilful cultivation. 



Having distinguished the plants, I shall leave the determination 

 of the true generic character and specific identity to the future in- 

 vestigation of some one more practised in botanical disquisition 

 than myself, trusting that the result of the present inquiry will 

 be the speedy introduction from India, in a living state, of those 

 plants which have been described by the older writers, but which 

 are not at present in the gardens of Europe. That they exist 

 in China is ascertained by the Herbarium of Sir Joseph Banks, 

 now in the possession of my friend Mr. Robert Brown, in which 

 are many different specimens, all arranged as varieties of Chry- 

 santhemum Indicum, which were brought from China by the late 

 Sir George Staunton, when he accompanied Lord Macartney's 

 Embassy to Pekin ; some of these are of different kinds of 

 Chinese Chrysanthemums ; others are of the plants with small 

 flowers (some single, some double), which I consider to be the 

 Chrysanthemum Indicum of Liunams ; one of these with double 

 flowers exactly resembles the specimen in Plukenet's Herba- 

 rium referred to his Matricaria Sinejisis. Mr. Lambert has a 

 specimen from China, corresponding with this latter, also having 



* Synopsis Ptantarum, vol. ii. page 46 1. 



double 



