48 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



grass was first named and described by Willdenow as Coiv aruncli- 

 nacea, then named in the ' Hortus Benghalensis ' and distributed 

 by Roxburgh as Coix harhata, and entered in Sprengel's ' Systema' 

 with Willdenow' s character as Coix KtenUjii. All these names 

 were defective as referring to a wrong genus. Brown corrected 

 the error by creating the new genus Chionachne, and selected 

 Roxbm-gh's "^specific name as the one most generally known and 

 the least liable to misinterpretation ; and Brown's Chionachne 

 harhata is therefore the first correct name, for which Thwaites 

 afterwards substituted Chionachne Kcenitjii, an entirely new and 

 useless name, which falls by the law of priority. It should be well 

 borne in mind that every new name coined for an old j)lant, with- 

 out affording any aid to science, is only an additional impediment.' 



The same distmguished botanist elsewhere condemns " the 

 modern very objectionable practice of detaching the adjective of an 

 old incorrect name to combine it with the substantive of a more 

 recent but correct name, and thus frame a thu'd new one which 

 cannot record the old one without explanation, and only adds a 

 perfectly useless synonym." — (Bentham in ' Hook. Ic. Plant.' 

 sub. t. 1279 Lachnostylis capensis.) 



ON THE VEGETABLE REMAINS IN THE EGYPTIAN 



MUSEUM AT BERLIN. 



By Alexander Braun. 



Edited from the Author's MSS. by P. Ascherson and P. Magnus. 



(' Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologic,' ix., 1877). 



(Continued from. p. 23.) 



Our interest is farther bound up with our knowledge of the old 

 Egyptian Elora, since extraordinary differences in the distribution 

 of several species are the result of the comparison of it with the 

 present. We find now cultivated and naturalised in Egypt many 

 plants, no trace of the existence of which in times of antiquity 

 can be proved. On the other hand, there existed in ancient Egypt 

 several j)lants which have now vanished from the region of the 

 Lower Nile. Of course it should be remarked that among the plants 

 of the old Egyptian tombs a few appear to have reached Egypt 

 by means of trade, and not to have been a product of the land, as 

 for instance was most probably the case with the fruits of a 

 certain species of Sapindiis. The most widely distributed fruit 

 trees of the Egypt of to-day are, according to a communication 

 from the late Professor Bilharz, the Date-palm, true Sycamore, 

 Zizyphus Spina-Chriati, W^illd. Opuntia is used to mark the 

 boundaries of fields at Alexandria and Cairo ; the fruits are brought 

 to market. In the gardens there are grown oranges, lemons, 

 aj)ricots, peaches, almonds, vines, figs, mulberries, pomegranates, 

 bananas, as a rarity Anona squamosa, L. Apples, pears and 

 plums are bad, and are brought mostly from Syria and Greece, as 

 also cherries, walnuts, hazel and pistacio nuts, which are rarely 



