176 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



uus veriis he may have meant to describe the highly odorous 

 Kaida, which is no doubt found in many islands of the eastern 

 archipelago, yet he described in fact an inferior species found 

 in Amboina, and which may readily be distinguished from the 

 Kaida by the size of the fruit, and by the structure of the 

 drupa ; for he says (p. 139-) " fructus magnitudinem habet mali 

 aurantii, sed oblongior est. — In centro cujusvis pyramidis (drupae) 

 foraminulum tanquam porus conspicitur, ubi et brevis adparet 

 apex." Now Rheede says, " Fructus oblongo-rotundi sunt et 

 praegrandes — in singulis tuberculis (druparum apicibus) tribus 

 aculeatis, lignosis papillis muniti :" and in fact in fig. 5. the 

 fruit is represented as large as the pine-apple (7 inches long by 

 44 thick), with three large pores on the end of each drupa, each 

 pore being placed in a projecting tubercle. We may therefore 

 safely infer, that the plant of Amboina, actually described by 

 Rumphius, is not the Kaida, although much of what he says 

 concerning the Pundanus verus probably belongs to the highly 

 odorous plant of other islands, which is probably not different 

 from that of Malabar. 



The elder Burman considered the plant of Amboina, de- 

 scribed by Rumphius with a fruit like an orange, as being the 

 same with the Ananas sylvestris arborescens of Acosta, with a 

 fruit like a melon, and as being the Kaida Taddi of Rheede, not 

 his Kaida. But the Kaida Taddi, as I shall have occasion to 

 show, is rather the Pandanus spnrius of Rumphius. The elder 

 Burman was probably misled by Plukenet in giving his plant to 

 the Kaida Taddi : very little dependence can however be placed 

 on his authority, especially as he adds to the synonyma an Ame- 

 rican plant, the Nana brava of Marc grave, probably a real 

 Bromelia. It would be impossible, therefore, on the authority 

 of the elder Burman, to say what the JVcetkakeiya of the Cey- 

 lonese is. 



Linnaeus, 



