984 NOTES ON THE BOTANY OF JAMAICA. 
popular name of “ Gallimanca,” the Guarea grandifolia, DC., but which 
seems to have escaped the notice of Jamaica botanists. In its leaves 
I remark a peculiarity that I never saw in any other class of plants. 
They first appear with a few pinne, and continue to prolong the midrib 
and add new pairs of leaflets, while the first are becoming old and 
dropping off, till the midrib is at last left naked for a length of two 
and even three feet, and has in the meantime acquired such a tough 
ligneous structure and roundness, that, but for the facility of finding 
leaves in all stages, the absence of buds in the axillze of the leaflets, 
the raceme of flowers at its base, and the analogy of the closely-allied 
genus Trichilia, it might be mistaken for a branch, as indeed I think 
it has been. It was in a Trichilia that I first remarked the phenome- 
non. After a heavy rain in February, the little shrivelled bud at the 
end of the leaves on some of these bushes expanded into a pair of 
leaflets, while the old ones dropped off, leaving the leaf in the state 
described by Endlicher, p. 1051, “ foliis multijugis vel interdum termi- 
nali solum superstite unijugis.” In examining the pinnate leaves of 
other trees, Cedrelee, Leguminosae, &c., I came upon this Guarea 
grandifolia, which presents the phenomenon in an exaggerated degree. 
The tree generally stands under shelter of some larger one, an Krio- 
dendron or Calophyllum, and makes a very pretty arbour, beneath which 
I have often rested myself, and one that the cattle may enjoy without 
temptation to destroy it, for the leaves are so nauseous that none will 
eat them. The laths of it are used for wattling. 
After a residence here of a few months only, it would be premature 
to attempt a detailed account of any class of plants. Dr. M‘Fadyen 
is advancing to the completion of his Flora, and will shortly render 
any other superfluous. 
The whole number of species is something above 3,000: one 
of my botanical friends here estimates it at 5,000. I have not yet 
actually found more than 800 in this immediate neighbourhood, but I 
believe these will be fully a half of all that grow here; and if this 
district contains a half of the whole Flora, it will come to Dr. 
~ M'Fadyen's estimate, who, speaking of Lunan’s work, considers it to 
contain scarcely half the species. Lunan gives about 1,600. The 
total will probably be from 3,000 to 3,500. 
= Now that the passage to Jamaica is become so short and easy, it is 
much to be desired that botanists may often visit the island. It is doubt- 
