ARTICLES SENT TO THE KEW MUSEUM. 169 
indole et lingua. The other half of the work is occupied by Bon- 
tius’s six books; and concludes with Piso’s Mantissa aromatica, which 
however relates chiefly to East Indian products, those of American 
origin, which are treated in detail, being Anacardium occidentale and 
Theobroma Cacao. 
Piso's undoubted merits in the natural history of Brazil, seem to 
have been not so much enlarged by this second edition, as he has ex- 
posed himself to the reproach of placing those of his fellow-traveller 
and labourer in the shade. In uniting together materials both from 
the Old and the New World he may perhaps have adopted as a model 
the Libri Erotici of the celebrated Clusius, published half a century 
before; but he wanted, as regards the botanical portion, the thorough 
critical knowledge, which so justly distinguished that most eminent 
botanist of the age. Neither in arrangement nor judgment did the 
new edition gain anything; the originality of a first account has been 
lost here and there; and while various important notices of Maregrav 
are entirely omitted, or unjustly slighted, remarks and even figures were 
added to the first edition from other works, or the volume of Laet 
(who knew the labours of Clusius, Hernandez, Oviedo, Monardes and 
Garcia ab Horto, and made use of them) which were entirely out of 
place as not at all belonging to the plants of Brazil. Thus f.i. 
under Anhuiba (Myristica), p. 146, is quoted the North American Sas- 
safras, with a figure attached, from Joh. Bauhin’s Historia (vol. i. of 
the year 1650, p. 483, and thence in Chabrzus of 1666, p. 36); and 
the Brazilian tree Ibiraee, Chrysophyllum Buranhem, Riedel (Ch. glycy- 
phleeum, Casaretto, Decad, Nov. Stirp. Brasil. p. 12. n. 7), is taken to 
be Guajacum officinale from a remark of Laet in the first edition. 
(To be continued.) 
Botanical Objects communicated to the Kew Museum, from the AMAZON 
River, in 1851, dy RICHARD SPRUCE, Esq. 
(Continued from vol. ii. p. 76.) 
1. Seeds of Guaraná (Paullinia sorbilis, Mart.). From the Rio Negro. 
2. Rock from the Cachoeiras of the Rio Aripecurá; the surface 
eaten into holes by a Podostemacea, which has grown upon it. 
VOL. V. Z 
