156 ! Mr. DaYvANDER's Obfervations 
Linnzus, in his Ordines Naturales, has ranged the Begonia in 
the fifth divifion of the twelfth order, Holoracez, with Polygonum, 
Rumex, and others. Erxleben, in his Anfangsgründe der Naturge- 
fchichte, has claffed it with nearly the fame plants in his forty-fe- 
cond order, called Vaginales; and Rüling, in his Ordines Naturales, 
has it in his thirty- md order, Polygona, which differs from Erx- 
leben's Vaginales only in fome of the genera referred to it. 
. Adanfon, in his Familles des Plantes, has joined: it with a very 
different fet of plants, in his thirty-fecond family, which he calls 
Portulace. ButJuffieu, in his Genera Plantarum fecundum Ordines 
naturales difpofita, juft publifhed, has given it among Plantæ 
incertz fedis; and juftly fays, ** Genus nulli veré affine.” 
When Plumier firft determined the genus, he referred to it fix 
fpecies ; but the few words by which he diftinguifhed them, were 
not fufficient, in the prefent ftate of Botany,.to difcriminate fpecies. 
Whence Linnzus, in his firft edition of Species Plantarum, having 
then probably never feen a Begonia, joined all the fpecies of Plu- 
mier, and one of Sloane, under the name of Begonia obliqua; and 
in the fecond edition he added two more fynonyms, one from Rum- 
phius, and one from Browne : fo that in fact Begonia obliqua con- 
tained, under one trivial name, all the fpecies at that time known; 
. and it is no wonder that this vague name has been applied by dif- 
ferent botanifts to almoft any fpecies of Begonia which occurred to 
. them. Chevalier Lamarck in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique, and 
M. Jacquin in the firft volume of his Collectanea, were the firft 
who attempted to bring this confufed genus into fome order; but 
neither of them had feen more than one fpecies, and were obliged 
to make out the reft merely from books. 
A fpecies of Begonia, which flowered in October laft year (1788) 
in Mr. Lee's garden at Hammerfmith, made it neceflary for me to 
ftudy the genus of Begonia, for the purpofe of determining that 
plant: 
