134 Dr. Francis Hamitton’s Commentary 
these suppositions are liable to great objections, as was indeed 
noticed by Plukenet (Adm. 144.), although in writing that Com- 
mentary I did not attend sufficiently to what he said, and con- 
founded together two of his plants, which, being placed next 
each other, I took for one,—an error which I beg leave now to 
correct. Plukenet mentions an affinity between the Katou Alou 
and his Ficus arbor Americana, Arbuti foliis non serrata, fructu 
Pisi magnitudine, funiculis e ramis ad terram demissis prolifera 
. (Phyt. t. 178. f. 4.), now called Ficus pedunculata (Willd. Sp. Pl. 
iv. 1138.); but he says expressly, that Commeline erred in con- 
sidering the Katou Alou as the Ficus Indica; and that the Katou 
Alou could not be the American plant which he described, because 
its fruit is much larger and its leaves hairy beneath; while the - 
fruit of the American species being like Pease, and its leaves 
being smooth, it has a greater affinity to the Tsjakela of Rheede. 
In fact, this American tree is the Ficus laurifolia of M. Lamarck 
(Enc. Meth. ii. 495.), and perhaps the Ficus venosa of Willdenow 
(Sp. Pl. iv. 1136.) ; while the Tsjakela is the Ficus venosa of the 
Hortus Kewensis (first edition, iii. 451.), now called Ficus infec- 
toria. The Peralu, indeed, which I agree with Dr. Roxburgh in 
thinking to be the true Ficus Indica, Plukenet referred, but with 
doubt, to another American plant, his Ficus Americana, latiori 
. folio venoso ex Curacoa (Alm. 144 ; Phyt. t.178. f. 1.), which was 
then cultivated in the Royal Garden at Hampton-Court ; and 
this in all probability is the tree which Linnæus, omitting the 
cautious doubt of Plukenet, called the Ficus Benghalensis, the 
barbarous name of which I complained. The figure of Plukenet 
(Phyt. t. 178. f. 1.) has no doubt a considerable resemblance to 
the Peralu ; but the difference of the countries where they grow 
is so great, that much reliance cannot be placed on figures that 
represent neither flower nor fruit. The figure, besides, of Plu- 
kenet resembles fully as much the Katou Alou as the Peralu; 
but 
