OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 225 



XANTHOXYLUM. Although most authors, including even the 

 classical Endlicher, have adhered to the faulty orthography, Zanthoxy- 

 lum, yet the correction was made even in Linnaeus's day by Miller, 

 and has been adopted by nearly a dozen of the prominent botanists 

 (including Smith, Sprengel, and Lindley) ; so that, inasmuch as both 

 forms must be given in indexes, it is better to be correct. As well as 

 I can make out, the name Zanthoxylum began with Plukenet (Aim. 

 396), and in a confusion (his original being the Fustic-wood of Bar- 

 badoes) which has resulted in fixing the name of Yellow-wood upon 

 a large genus of trees and shrubs that have no yellow wood or bark, 

 or hardly any. Linnaeus in Gen. PI. refers the genus to Colden 

 (who knew only the northern X. Americanum) ; but he had much 

 earlier taken up the genus in Hort. Cliff., from Catesby, whose plant 

 is the Carolinian Clava Herculis. In the first edition of the Spec. 

 Plantarum there is no reference to Browne, Hist. Jam., so the West 

 Indian species has no claim whatever to this specific name. Further 

 information is needed of the Arkansas-Texan form, which has been 

 regarded as a species by Nuttall, Wright, Buckley, Engelmann, &c, 

 and (in Florida) by Shuttleworth, while I can see in it only a variable 

 form, x&v.fruticosum. There is, perhaps, more doubt as to X. Cari- 

 bcetan, var. Floridanwn, the X. Floridanum, Nutt. Sylv. hi. t. 85, 

 which Watson in his Bibl. Index and Curtiss in his distributed sets 

 refer without question to X. Caribceum, Lam., the full synonymy of 

 which is brought together by Triana and Planchon. But the Florida 

 trees, so far as we know, are unarmed ; those of Lamarck's species 

 are said to be prickly ; the leaflets of the former are mostly fewer, 

 and those near the inflorescence commonly obtuse ; there is an early 

 pubescence on the inflorescence and petioles of the former, and no 

 rimose wartiness. But specimens collected by Sargent have foliage 

 on mature sterile shoots quite like specimens from Martinique, some 

 of which show no prickles ; Macfadyen's X. elephantiasis is said to be 

 unarmed, and Grisebach does not assign prickles to his X. aromaticum. 



AMYRIS, P. Browne. Hooker's suggestion that this genus 

 should be transferred to the Rutacece was rightly acted upon by 

 Triana and Planchon in Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 5, xiv. 320, where 

 some critical remarks are made upon the species. The wrong refer- 

 ence of Amyris elemifera, L., to Ptelea trifoliata by De Candolle is 

 there corrected. Catesby's figure clearly represents a small-leaved 

 form of the West Indian and Florida coast species. But, by some 

 oversight, Triana and Planchon say that from the figure the species 

 vol. xxiii. (x. s. xv.) 15 



