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AKRUDA'S BRAZILIAN PLANTS. 

 By James Britten, F.L.S. 



Having Lad occasiou to look up one of Arruda's names, I found 

 that a considerable number of the species standing in Mr. Jackson's 

 hidex on his authority had never been correlated, and that in some 

 cases even the systematic position of his genera was doubtfully or 

 inaccurately indicated. It seemed to me worth while to identify as 

 far as possible these obscure plants by an examination of the de- 

 criptions, local names, and other indications given by Arruda, and 

 by references to works in which they have been cited. Some 

 identifications, overlooked by Mr. Jackson, may be found in 

 Martins' Flora Brasiliensis, others are given by monographers ; 

 and I have found considerable help in Mr. Miers's valuable MS. 

 "Catalogue of the Woods of Brazil," now in the Department of 

 Botany. 



The plants described by Arruda have found their way into 

 botanical literature tbrough the Appendix to Henry Roster's 

 Travels in Brazil (1816). This English traveller, who was of 

 Portuguese descent, finds no place in the Dictionary of National 

 Biotfraphy, but Larousse gives a short account of him. He was 

 born at Liverpool in 1793. His delicate health rendered a sojourn 

 in warm climates necessary, and in November, 1809, he sailed for 

 Brazil, in which country he remained until April, 1811. Having 

 spent the summer in England, he went back to Brazil, where he 

 settled down as a planter. Circumstances rendered it necessary for 

 Koster to return home at the end of 1815. He then set to work to 

 write an account of his travels, in which he had the help of Robert 

 Southey, then Poet Laureate. His book is extremely interesting, 

 and shows the author — who was only twenty-two when he wrote it 

 — to have been a man of much promise, Koster visited much of the 

 country then little known to Europeans ; and his notes on the 

 region, the people, and their customs, are of considerable value. 

 He learnt Portuguese, and soon became at home among the people. 

 "England is my country," he says at the close of his narrative, 

 "but my native soil is Portugal : I belong to both, and whether in 

 the company of Englishmen, of Portugueze, or of Brazilians, I feel 

 equally among my countrymen." It is manifest from his book that 

 the character ascribed to him in Larousse was well deserved : — 

 "Done d'un esprit judicieux et d'un caractere affable, il a considere 

 les hommes et les choses sans prevention et sans aigreur." Koster 

 went to Brazil a third time, but did not return : he died at Pernam- 

 buco in 1820. 



The only information I have been able to find about Arruda is 

 the following note by Koster (Travels, p. 49) : — 



" On the 24th of October [1810] , I delivered a letter of intro- 

 duction which I obtained at Recife, to the Dr. Manuel Arruda da 

 Camara. This interesting person lay at Goiana very ill of dropsy, 

 brought on by residing in aguish districts. He was an enterprising 

 man, and had always been an enthusiast in botany. His superior 



