e plates, containing figures of 178 plants, tolerably executed, but much 
2 ing to the Linnean system, are described about 1500 species, but the 
- < PREFACE. 
Malabar, Cinghalese, and offieinal names. This work is yet of use as a 
pinax of these plants, and as a Linnean catalogue of Burmann’s Thesau- 
rus Zeylanicus. The herbarium consisted of 600 plants, of which the 
true places in the system are assigned to more than 400; the remainder 
were too imperfect to admit of their being sufficiently determined. 
This volume is rendered valuable by a concise view of the progress of 
botany from the restoration of learning in the 16th century ; a natural 
history of Ceylon, and its general produce; the life of Dr Hermann ; a 
. short account of Hartog, who was sent by Dr Sherard to make collec- 
. tions in that island ; and a sketch of Burmann's Thesaurus Zeylanicus. 
Linnzus authenticates the herbarium by showing that the numbers and 
the plants answer to Hermann's Museum Zeylanicum. On the death of 
Count Moleke, who became the possessor of this herbarium after Gun- 
ther, it was purchased by Sir Joseph Banks (for seventy-five guineas), 
and still forms part of his immense collection. The specimens are - 
miserably damaged and mutilated, but many of them retain the Cingha- 
lese names annexed in Hermann's handwriting, and also generic names 
and synonyms in Linnzus's. They occupy four large bound volumes, 
three of which contain only Ceylon plants, and the fourth African and 
Indian plants together; in all of them the specimens are placed without 
regard to method, and apparently just in the order in which they were 
eollected. There is a fifth volume, containing only drawings, which are 
not ill executed (for that period), and which amount to about 400 in 
number; but the same figure is in several instances given more than 
once *.” "This herbarium, along with Sir Joseph Banks's other collec- 
tions, is now in the British Museum: we regret that our distance from 
the metropolis has prevented our consulting it, except for the elucida- 
tion of the Leguminose and Balsaminez. It is well worthy the exa- 
mination of any botanist conversant with the plants of the Peninsula or - 
Ceylon, as it identifies many of Linnzus' species, of which he had no 
specimens in his own herbarium, and which are involved in much ob- - 
scurity, from his having adduced at the same time synonyms from — 
Rheede, Rumphius, or Plukenet, of plants much at variance with each 
other, and with what he himself had in view. 
In 1768, Professor Nicholas Laur. Burmann of p aS son ie 
the author of the Flora Zeylanica, published his Flora Indica, with 67 
inferior to those in the Flora Zeylanica. In this work, arranged accord- 
names adopted and the synonyms are frequently so erroneous, that it is — 
scarcely entitled to rank among the scientific works of modern times ; 
— * Pulteney's General View of the Writings of Linneus by Maton, p. 88. 
