À Sir J. E. Smitu on the Lignum Rhodium 
the isle of Rhodes being its native country. We find nothing 
among them indicative of the above Liquidambar, or any similar 
tree. It is evident that Pococke had but a superficial knowledge 
of the historical, and still less of the botanical, part of the subject. 
The only point I have had in view, after the example of Dr. Sib- 
thorp, was to ascertain Pococke’s plant. Specimens preserved in 
the herbarium of my deceased friend, and a pencil sketch by 
Mr. Bauer, show this to be, without any doubt, what he deter- 
mined it, the Liquidambar Styraciflua of Linneus, and not, as 
Willdenow presumed, the imberbe of Aiton. This last was brought 
from the Levant, Duhamel says from Caria, by Peysonel to the 
Paris garden, from whence I have an authentic specimen. Miller 
obtained seeds, by which the _L. imberbe was introduced-into our 
gardens, and he describes it well. Nothing can be more distinct 
as a species; but it was not well ascertained when Dr. Sibthorp 
began his travels, which will account for his adverting to the 
American Liquidambar only. | 
There still remains great difficulty in accounting for the intro- 
duction of this tree into Cyprus, and for its becoming so famous 
there. The plant is not known to have been cultivated in En- 
gland, much before the end of the seventeenth century, scarcely 
fifty years before Pococke found it, apparently long established 
in Cyprus. The Venetians were owners of this island from the 
year 1480 to 1570; so that if they, as Dr. Sibthorp guesses, in- 
troduced this tree, it must have been among the earlier botanical 
importations from the new-discovered continent. But we can 
find no traces of the Liquidambar tree having, any where, excited 
the particular attention of the Venetians, or an y other Italians, 
either for medical, ceconomical, or religious purposes; nor does 
it occur in their gardens, or even their botanical catalogues, as far 
as I can trace. Pococke’s vague mention of the ** isle of Marti- 
nico” 
