360 Dr. Walker-Arnott on Samara laeta, Linn. 



referenda cum celeb. Jussieu :" and this is repeated in the ' Annates des Sci- 

 ences Naturelles,' (n. s.) ii. p. 301, where the quotation of tah. 76, instead of 

 pageJQ. tab. 31, has given occasion to a rather unmerited criticism in Meis- 

 ner's ' Plantarum Vasculosarum Genera,' ii. p. 61. In the 8th volume of the 

 ' Prodromus,' at p. 76, this is corrected : here he says, " Samara, Linn, non 

 Sw., est Cornus Zeylanica, Burm. ! Zeyl. p. 76. tab. 31, quae Rhamnea, ut dixit 

 eel. Jussieu ;" and from the mark after Burmann's name in these three places, 

 M. Alph. DeCandolle seems to have himself seen and examined Burmann's 

 specimens. But, what is not a little remarkable, a few pages further on 

 (p. 103) he says, when describing Samara Iceta, Sw., " S. loeta, Linn. Mant. 

 p. 199, est Memecylon umhellatum (fide Guillemin in litt.) ex India Orientali," 

 Guillemin's allusion being obviously also to Burmann's specimen, now in 

 M. DeLessert's herbarium, of which he was Curator. That M. Guillemin is 

 correct in referring Burmann's plant to Memecylon, an attentive comparison 

 of the figure with specimens will convince almost any one, although by some 

 unaccountable mistake onlyybwr stamens, instead of eight, are described and 

 figured by Burmann : indeed, if the ligure were to be trusted to implicitly as to 

 the number of stamens, we must also confide in its accuracy as to their position, 

 and then allow that they are alternate with, not opposite to the petals ; this latter 

 portion of the usual generic character of Samara being derived from Linnaeus's 

 description alone. In no respect, then, ought Burmann's plant to be associated 

 with either Rhamnece or Myrsinece, from which, too, the opposite leaves sepa- 

 rate it. 



The first, so far as I am aware, who suspected that there was an error in 

 Burmann's figure was Lamarck (Encycl. Meth. iv. p. 88), who quotes it with 

 doubt under his Memecylon ramijlorum, and says : " Je ne douterois presque 

 pas que cette esp^ce n'appartient a la figure citee de Burmann (figure que Linn^ 

 rapporte a son Samara Iceta, bien quelle offre des feuilles oppos6es, le Samara les 

 ayant alternes), si Burmann n'attribuoit aux fleurs seulement quatre ^tamines. 

 En eflfet la forme des feuilles et la disposition des fleurs de la plante que je 

 vais d6crire y sont rendues avec assez d'exactitude pour qu'il ne soit pas 

 facile de I'y m6connoitre." This assertion is however in some measure neu- 

 tralized by the descriptions attached to the ' Illustration des genres,' where 

 he quotes Burmann's figure for the Samara Iceta, and copies it also, in tab. 74, 



