ARRUDa's BRAZILIAN PLANTS. 243 



abilities would have caused liim to be caressed by a provident 

 Government, when one of this description is establishing itself in 

 an uncultivated but improving country. Ho showed me some of 

 his drawings, which I thought well executed. I never again had 

 an opportunity of seeing him ; for when I returned from Seara, 

 I had not time to enquire and seek for him, and he died before my 

 second voyage to Pernaaibuco. He was forming a Flora Pernam- 

 bucana, which he did not live to complete." 



In the Appendix to his Tniiels, Koster translated such portions 

 as "may be interesting to English readers" of Arruda's two 

 pamphlets — " Disserta(,'ao sobre as plautas do Brazil, que podem 

 dar linhos proprios para meritos usos da sociedade, e suprir a falta 

 do Canhamo," Rio de Janeiro, 1810, 8vo, pp. 49 (on the fibrous 

 plants of Brazil, which may supply the place of hemp) — -and 

 another, published in the same year, but not mentioned by Pritzel, 

 the title of which Koster translates as "An Essay on the utility of 

 establishing gardeus in the principal provinces of Brazil for the 

 cultivation of new plants." Pritzel mentions an earlier memoir 

 (Lisbon, 1799) on the cultivation of cotton. 



Arruda's most important work was Centuria Plantanuii Peniam- 

 hucensium, which he did not live to complete. It included a collection 

 of drawings, some of them executed under his direction by Joam 

 Eibeiro (whom Pritzel calls " Martinus "), to which Arruda sup- 

 plied names and sometimes descriptions. References to these are 

 appended to all the new plants described in the two pamphlets 

 already mentioned ; and some account of them was given in a 

 publication (at Rio) by Allemao in 1846, consisting of one quarto 

 leaf and plate, and entitled " Apparecimento de uma collecf;ao de 

 desenhos do Doutor Manoel Arruda da Camara." Allemrio says 

 that the collection had been entrusted to him to publish, and that 

 he was also desirous of printing a memoir of Arruda. The plate 

 and description are of Cochlospennum insiijne, on which Arruda had 

 proposed to form a new genus, Azeredia, in honour of Jose Joaquim 

 de Azeredo Coutinho, Bishop of Pernambuco from 1798 to 1802. 



Joam Ribeiro Pessoa de Mello Montenegro, who has been referred 

 to above, was professor of drawing in the seminary at Olinda. 

 Arruda dedicated to him his genus I'dbirea. (= Hancornia) : "he is 

 worthy of this honour," he says, " not only from having attempted 

 to introduce into this captaincy the cultivation of some useful exotic 

 plants, but for the curious and philosophic examination which he 

 has made respecting the wonderful phenomenon of the manner of 

 the fructification of the mmujahelra plant [Hancurnia] , which will 

 be found in my Centuria Plant. Pern." (Koster, p. 499). He died, 

 according to Pritzel, in 1810. Koster met this priest at Itamaraca, 

 and the account he gives of him (p. 2G6) is so pleasant that I ven- 

 ture to transcribe it : — 



"Among the visitors at the vicarage was Joam Ribeiro Pessoa 

 de Mello Montenegro, professor of drawing to the seminary of 

 Olinda, and the friend and disciple of Dr. Manoel Arruda da 

 Camara. This priest, during his stay at Itamaraca, crossed over to 

 the mainland to say mass at the village of Camboa every Sunday 



R 2 



