186 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



nparsis of his father {Thes. Zeyl. 229- t. 109. )> which does not 

 seem to me to be a Vitex. 



M. Lamarck returns to the distinction of Rumphius, charac- 

 terizing the Cam Nosi or Lagondiiim vulgare by its having folia 

 simplicia ternataque subintegerrima, and the Vitex paniculata {Enc. 

 Meth. ii. 6l2.) as having yb/?a quinata integerrima: but- then 

 this plant, although it is the Lagondium Utoreum of Rumphius, 

 is not the Bern Nosi of Rheede, which M. Lamarck considers as 

 a mere accidental variety of the Cara Nosi, and therefore ex- 

 cludes altogether the Vitex Negundo, as a species. I must say 

 however, that the Vitex which grows so common, and half wild, 

 in the hedges about gardens and villages, just like the Samhucus 

 nigra in Europe, has leaves simple, ternate, and quinate, entire 

 and serrated ; and it must be observed, that Rheede says of the 

 Bern Nosi, folia in petiolis terna et passim quina. I agree there- 

 fore with M. Lamarck in thinking the Cara Nosi and Bern Nosi 

 mere accidental varieties of the same species, to which should 

 be referred the Lagondium vulgare of Rumphius. As however 

 M. Lamarck has seen specimens both in flower and fruit of an- 

 other species, which he considered as the Lagondium Utoreum, I 

 have little doubt of Rumphius having been in an error, when he 

 compared his plant to the Bern Nosi, and that this error misled 

 Linnaeus into the mistake of distinguishing as species the Ne- 

 gundo mas et foemina. 



Notwithstanding the observations of M. Lamarck, Willdenow, 

 who never saw the plant, joins the Vitex paniculata, or Lagondium 

 Utoreum, with the Bern Nosi and all its concomitant synonyma, 

 as given in the Flora Zeylanica (p. 414.), and thus retains the 

 V. Negundo : yet in the annexed observation he admits that the 

 V. trifoUa has folia subtus tomentosa, and the V. Negundo folia 

 subtus nuda ; while the very name Bern, as Rheede observes, im- 

 plies 



