28 ME. BEIfNETT ON THE SPECIES OF CEOTON 



these, it is evident that the only true synonym is that of ' Hortus 

 Cliffortianus,' from which the name of the species was derived. 



Up to this time Linnaeus had in his own herbarium no 

 specimen referred to Clutia Eluteria ; and there is no indication 

 by which it can be positively determined whence and at what 

 period the specimen which he subsequently designated by that 

 name was obtained. It appears probable, however, that it was 

 one of the Jamaica specimens received by him from Patrick 

 Browne, and described in his ' Pugillus Plantarum Jamaicensium ' 

 (1759), inserted in the fifth volume of his ' Amoenitates Academicse.' 

 The description which he there gives (p. 411) of Clutia Eluteria 

 is quite inapplicable to the original plant, and exactly agrees with 

 this specimen. In the second edition of ' Species Plantarum,' 

 he refers to this description, adds Patrick Browne's synonym, and 

 retains that of ' Hortus CliiFortianus,' as well as the erroneous 

 reference to Plukenet and Seba. It is only necessary to add, that 

 in Swartz's ' Flora Indise Occidentalis ' (p. 1183), Patrick Browne's 

 plant is properly referred to the genus Groton, and is carefully de- 

 scribed, under the name of Croton Eluteria, as synonymous with 

 Clutia Eluteria, L., and that a figure of the true or Bahamian 

 species, taken from one of Mr. Dean's specimens in the Banksian 

 Herbarium, is given in Woodville's ' Medical Botany,' t. 223, to- 

 gether with a sketch of a miserable scrap of the Jamaica plant 

 from a specimen communicated to the same Herbarium by Dr. 

 "Wright, who, in the eighth volume of the ' Medical Journal,' de- 

 scribes it as producing " the Cascarilla or Elutheria of the 

 shops." 



I now turn to the second species, Clutia Cascarilla, L. Linnaeus 

 had originally no knowledge of this species, except that which he 

 derived from the figure of Catesby and the synonym of " Bicinoides 

 elseagni folio," quoted by Catesby from Plumier; and both of 

 these he referred, in his ' Elora Zeylanica,' to the confused heap 

 there collected under the head of Elutenafoliis cordato-lamceolatis. 

 The same confusion between the Bahamian and the Ceylonese 

 species was continued in his ' Materia Medica ' ; but in the first 

 edition of ' Species Plantarum ' he distinguished the plant figured 

 by Catesby under the name of Clutia Cascarilla, — mistaking, how- 

 ever, the habitat, which Catesby indicates as the Bahamas, and 

 substituting Carolina in its stead. As he denotes by his usual 

 symbol (f) that he had never seen this species, and quotes no other 

 synonym than that of Catesby, there can be no question that the 

 species is wholly founded on the figure and description of that 



