126 Dr. Francis HAMILTON’s Commentary 
presented to the India House (Cat. No. 1526). I shall here 
annex the synonyma which seem to me really to belong to it. 
Gossampinus alba. 
Bombax pentandrum. Hort. Kew.iv. 196. Hort. Beng. 50. 
Willd. Sp. Pl.iii.731. Enc. Meth. ii. 551. Burm. Fl. Ind. 
145. (exclusis synonymis fortè ad plantam Americanam 
pertinentibus, ut et Plukenetii.) | | 
Ceiba pentandra. Gertn. de Sem. ii. 244. t. 133. f. 1? 
Xylon foliis digitatis caule inermi. Linn. FI. Zeyl. 220. 
Eriophorus Javana. Herb. Amb. i. 194. t. 80. 
Panja seu Panjala. Hort. Mal. iii. 59. t. 49—51. 
Arbor Gossampinus. Plinii Hist. Nat. l. xii. c. 10, 11. 
Swet (alba) Shimul Bengalensium. 
Habitat in Indi sylvis rariüs. 
Gærtner neither mentions from whence he had the fruit, nor 
the manner in which it opens, which renders it doubtful whether 
he describes this or the American plant. 
Mout Eravov, p.61. tab. 52. 
This is one of the most common trees in India, and is remark- 
able in spring, when it has no leaves, for an immense quantity 
of bright red flowers. On this account it is most probably the 
Arbor lanigera, seu Gossampinus Plinii of Bontius. The cathar- 
tic powers which Rheede attributes to its roots and flowers are 
extraordinary in this tribe of plants, chiefly remarkable for a 
mild mucilage; and would seem, if well founded, to imply a 
necessity of separating it from the proper Malvacec. 
On account of the prickles on the stem, the fallacious nature 
of which character I have noticed in commenting on the Her- 
barium Amboinense, Plukenet considered it as perhaps the same 
with his Gossipium seu Xylon arbor occidentale digitatis foliis per 
: marginem 
