360 Dr. WarkEn-AnNorT on Samara læta, Linn. 
referenda cum celeb. Jussieu:" and this is repeated in the * Annales des Sci- 
ences Naturelles,’ (n. s.) ii. p. 301, where the quotation of tab. 76, instead of 
page 76. tab. 31, has given occasion to a rather unmerited criticism in Meis- 
ner's * Plantarum Vasculosarum Genera, ii. p. 51. In the 8th volume of the 
* Prodromus, at p. 76, this is corrected: here he says, ** Samara, Linn. non 
Sw., est Cornus Zeylanica, Burm. ! Zeyl. p. 76. tab. 31, quee Rhamnea, ut dixit 
cel. Jussieu ;” and from the mark after Burmann's name in these three places, 
M. Alph. DeCandolle seems to have himself seen and examined Burmann's 
specimens. But, what is not a little remarkable, a few pages further on 
(p. 103) he says, when describing Samara leta, Sw., * S. læta, Linn. Mant. 
p. 199, est Memecylon umbellatum (fide Guillemin in litt.) ex India Orientali," 
Guillemin's allusion being obviously also to Burmann's specimen, now in 
M. DeLessert's herbarium, of which he was Curator. That M. Guillemin is 
correct in referring Burmann's plant to Memecylon, an attentive comparison 
of the figure with specimens will convince almost any one, although by some 
unaccountable mistake only four stamens, instead of eight, are described and 
figured by Burmann: indeed, if the figure were to be trusted to implicitly as to 
the number of stamens, we must also confide in its accuracy as to their position, 
and then allow that they are alternate with, not opposite to the petals ; this latter 
portion of the usual generic character of Samara being derived from Linnzeus's 
description alone. In no respect, then, ought Burmann's plant to be associated 
with either Rhamnece or Myrsinec, from which, too, the opposite leaves sepa- 
rate it. 
The first, so far as I am aware, who suspected that there was an error in 
Burmann’s figure was Lamarck (Encycl. Méth. iv. p. 88), who quotes it with 
doubt under his Memecylon ramiflorum, and says: * Je ne douterois presque 
pas que cette espéce n'appartient à la figure citée de Burmann (figure que Linné 
rapporte à son Samara læta, bien qu'elle offre des feuilles opposées, le Samara les 
ayant alternes), si Burmann nattribuoit aux fleurs seulement quatre étamines. 
En effet la forme des feuilles et la disposition des fleurs de la plante que je 
vais décrire y sont rendues avec assez d'exactitude pour qu'il ne soit pas 
facile de l'y méconnoitre." This assertion is however in some measure neu- 
tralized by the descriptions attached to the * Illustration des genres,’ where 
he quotes Burmann's figure for the Samara leta, and copies it also, in tab. 74, 
