Dr. Walker-Arnoit on Samara Iseta, Linn. 363 



are the more necessary to be recollected, because M. Alphonse DeCandoUe in 

 the 'Prodromus,' viii. p. 103, assumes it as a fact, that the Swartzian plant 

 was from America, and therefore that it must be different from the Linnean 

 one obtained from the East. 



Where Swartz saw the plant which he considered the S. loeta of Linnseus is 

 fortunately a point not very difficult to be conjectured. In the short sketch of 

 the Life of Swartz published in Hooker's ' Botanical Journal,' ii. p. 384, it is 

 stated : "At length, in 1786, he returned to Kingston in Jamaica, where, out 

 of attachment to his native land, he declined the honour that was offered to 

 him of being appointed Botanist to His Britannic Majesty, and embarked for 

 England on his way to Sweden. He remained for some time in London, 

 profiting by the opportunity thus afforded him for examining the vast trea- 

 sures in the Banhsian herbarium, and comparing the plants that he had 

 himself brought home with this and other collections, and then in 1789 he 

 returned to his own country." I am however informed by Mr. Bennett, that 

 " there is a letter from him to Sir Joseph Banks, dated Orfordness, 23rd 

 July, 1787, when he was just on the point of soon losing sight of England ; 

 and another from Norrkoping in Sweden, dated 29th August, 1787." As the 

 title-page of the 'Prodromus' bears date 1788, it may be inferred that this 

 work was printed immediately after his return to Sweden, and that the manu- 

 script had been drawn up in the West Indies. Moreover, there is another 

 letter from him to Sir Joseph Banks, written from Jamaica on 1st March, 

 1786, so that it must have been between the summers of 1786 and 1787* that 

 Swartz examined the Banksian collections, and there made the observations 

 on S. Iceta, which he afterwards inserted in his ' Flora Indiee Occidentalis.' 

 How far the plant so called, which is preserved in the Banksian herbarium, 

 differs from the Linnean specimen, I shall notice presently. The marks given 

 by Swartz in the ' Flora Indiae Occidentalis' for distinguishing it from S. co- 

 riacea, are strictly applicable to the specimens in the Banksian collection : 



* Abundance of documents no doubt exist in London to prove the exact period during which Swartz 

 was so engaged, as also when the ' Prodromus' was written, and the addenda and corrigenda made. I 

 am unwilling to refer to memoranda of my own, or to hearsay evidence ; the above is sufficient to esta- 

 blish that Swartz must have seen the S. lata of the Banksian herbarium before he published the 'Flora 

 Indise Occidentalis.' 



