240 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



piades of his brother Caspar, all of which synonyma belong to the 

 Egyptian species, of which this figure may be a good representa- 

 tion, although he has by mistake quoted it for the Indian kind. 



The elder Burman makes matters no better. The Ericu he 

 calls Apocynum indicum, maximum, jioribus amplis, lanthinia, obso- 

 letis {Thes. Zeyl. 24.), joining with it the Beid el Ossar of Egypt, 

 and nearly all the synonyma given, right or wrong, by Plukenet 

 to his Egyptian, Syrian and Indian kinds ; only excluding the 

 Bel Ei'icu, which he calls Apocynum indicum, sylvestre, inodorum, 

 siliquosum, seminibus papposis, jioribus albis amplis {Thes. Zeyl. 25.). 

 By mistake he seems to have called this the Idda of the Cey- 

 lonese ; for that he really meant the Bel Ericu there is no doubt 

 from his quotation of Commeline : but Linnaeus considered the 

 Idda as his Nerium foliis lanceolato-ovatis, ramis divaricotis (Fl. 

 Zeyl. 109. )» which has become the N. divaricatum of Willdenow 

 {Sp. PI. i. 1236.). On this account Burman's plant is now quoted 

 as a Nerium ; although if Linnaeus had observed that the Idda 

 was the Apocynum zeylanicum indicum frutescens, Neriijlore cnn- 

 didissimo of Hermann's Paradisics, and not the Apocynum erectum 

 incanum latifolium, Malabaricum, jioribus omnino albis of the same 

 work, which is quoted by Burman, he would have discovered the 

 latter author's error respecting the Idda, and would not have 

 removed Burman's plant from the Bel Ericu to join it with a Ne- 

 rium, or more probably a Tabernamontana, which I suspect the 

 Idda is. See my commentary on the Curutu Pala {Hort. Mai. i. 

 83.)*. 



In the Flora Zeylanica (112.), excellent in general on syno- 

 nyma, Linnaeus made little improvement respecting the EricUy 

 joining it with the Beid el Ossar of Egypt, the Ericu americana 

 of Seba, and the figure erroneously referred to it by Plukenet in 

 the Phytographia, as already mentioned ; and thus probaby 



* Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. p. 519. 



united 



