160 Mr. DRYANDER’S Olfervations 
Dr. Swartz informed me, by letter, that his B. purpurea is the: 
common garden Begonia; but the fynonym of Browne, which he 
quotes, cannot well belong to thefe fpecies, as Browne’s plant is 
fcandent. Ido not know if Begonia rofeo flore, folio aurito, minor. 
et glabra, of Plumier (Begonia obliqua 8. Linn, Sp. PL), which Jac- 
quin and Swartz refer to this fpecies, belongs to it; as it is impoffi- 
ble from thefe few words to know what plant he meant, in a genus, 
where the fpecies are very difficult to diftinguifh from one another. 
Among a great many collections of plants from different Weft In- 
dia iflands, which I have feen, I have never found B. nitida from 
any other ifland than Jamaica; and as Plumier had, as far as I 
know, not been in that ifland, I think it rather probable that he 
did not mean this fpecies: befides, the epithet of Minor is ill appli- 
cable to fo tall a fhrub, and which has as large leaves as any in the 
genus, except macrophylla and grandis. | 
However unwilling to change names, I could not adopt any of 
the trivial names given to this plant: od/iqua is too vague, as Lin- 
næus under the name of Begonia obliqua includes a great number 
of fpecies, and it is even uncertain whether this be one of them ; 
minor, as I have already remarked, applies ill to it; and purpurea ftill 
lefs, as no part of it is of a purple colour. 
* 
2. BEGONIA jfoptera, caulefcens, foliis glabris femicordatis obfoleté 
dentatis, capfulz alis fubæqualibus parallelis *. 
Habitat in Java. 
Of this we may foon expect a figure and defcription in Dr. 
Smith’s Icones Plantarum, from a fpecimen in the younger Lin- 
naus's Herbarium. 
* Smith Ic. 43. 
3. BE- 
