48 PBTOH : 



it' was a garden plant. This is evident from the locality cited 

 by Moon, viz., North America, and from a note " from 

 Bourbon," in Moon's handwriting, in his copy of Willdenow 

 in the Peradeniya library. Moon gave a native name for it, 

 Rata-embul-embiliya (in modern spelling), but this is an obvious 

 coinage from the native name of the yellow-flowered Oxalis. 

 Unfortunately we cannot get any further from Moon's record, 

 for the reason that there is no herbarium specimen extant. 

 The Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, who has 

 kindly had inquiries made, informs me that there is no 

 specimen of Oxalis collected by Moon, either in the Kew 

 herbarium or in that of the British Museum (Natural History). 

 Consequently we do not know whether Moon had Oxalis 

 violacea, or 0. corymbosa, or 0. latifolia. But as it was intro- 

 duced from Bourbon, it was probably 0. corymbosa. 



Presumably Moon's plant was then growing in the Botanic 

 Gardens at Peradeniya. Both the species now common are 

 rather up-country weeds, 0. latifolia more so than 0. corymbosa. 

 But both occur, and have occurred for the last thirty years, 

 as weeds in the Peradeniya Gardens. There Oxalis latifolia 

 is small, spreads very slowly, and is apparently not found 

 outside the Gardens, but 0. corymbosa is more vigorous, and 

 may be found along the road-sides and on tea estates in the 

 neighbourhood. But the latter is not yet a serious weed at 

 this elevation. The diminution in its colonizing ability as 

 0. corymbosa approaches its lower limit is very clearly evident 

 on estates which extend from about 1,500 feet to 3,500 feet 

 elevation. On the upper fields Oxalis corymbosa may be 

 rampant, while on the lower fields only a few scattered plants 

 are to be found, though the individual plants seem vigorous 

 enough. 



Neither of these species of. Oxalis was collected by Gardner 

 or Thwaites (1844-1880). The first specimens placed in the 

 Garden herbarium, which is supposed to contain all the foreign 

 plants, cultivated or weeds, which grow in the Gardens, are 

 dated 1887 and marked " weed." They include both species. 

 It may, I think, be deduced fr^n this, and the evidence which 

 follows, that Moon's species, whether 0. violacea or not, did 

 not long survive its introduction, and is not the source of the 

 weeds of the present day. 



