BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES 143 



BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES. 

 LXIV. — "Flora of Prince of Wales's Island." 



In the Department of Botany is preserved a folio manuscript 

 entitled " Outline of a Flora of Prince of Wales's Island " 

 (Penang), dedicated to " His Excellency the Most Noble Marquis 

 Wellesley, Governor General," byDr. WilHam Hunter (1755-1812), 

 and dated from "Calcutta, 18th May, 1803." The provenance of 

 the MS. is not known — it was not one of those from Banks's 

 library — but its interest led to the publication of a transcription 

 in the Journal of the Straits Branch of the lioyal Asiatic Society 

 (No. lin, 52-127) in 1909, with an Introduction by Mr. H. N. 

 Eidley, at that time Director of the Botanic Gardens, Singapore. 

 A perusal of this Introduction, in which the special value and 

 interest of the Flora are shown, suggests one or two corrections 

 which may as well be placed on record : a note on the nomen- 

 clature of one of the species is added. 



Mr. Eidley describes the MS. as by " Sir WiUiam Hunter," 

 who is also styled " the author of this manuscript," which he says 

 is "in the British Museum." Hunter was never knighted, and, 

 although he was the author of the Flora, the MS. itself, with the 

 exception of the signed dedication (the date of which — " Calcutta, 

 18th May, 1803 " — is omitted from the printed copy), is not in his 

 hand. Moreover the MS., although in one sense " in the British 

 Museum," is, as has been already stated, in the Department of 

 Botany at South Kensington. 



The account of Hunter's life in the Dictionary of Natio7ial 

 Biography (xxviii, 305) makes no reference to his visit to Penang, 

 which took place in 1802." As the introduction and list show, he 

 made a full investigation of the island and of its plants, paying 

 special attention to those of economic value, of which he wrote a 

 full account. From this were drawn two papers — on Nauclea 

 ( Uncaria) Gambier and on species of Piper — which he published as 

 independent essays. Mr. Eidley says that the former (printed in 

 Linn. Trans, ix, 218, and read before the Linnean Society in 1807) 

 must have been written " about the same time " as the MS. ; it 

 is, however, almost textually derived from it, as are the descriptions 

 which follow of other species of Nauclea. 



It may here be noted that the original MS. was accompanied 

 by drawings to the number of twenty-two, to wdiich references are 

 made in the margin of the MS. copy which are omitted from the 

 printed version : these are doubtless with the original MS., should 

 that be in existence. The plate which accompanies the paper in 

 Linn. Trans, is not, as might be inferred from Hunter's remark in 

 the printed copy and MS., one of these to which the expanded 

 flowers alone were added from a drawing transmitted by Berry to 

 Eoxburgh : Hunter's note (Linn. Trans, ix, 223) makes it clear 

 that the Eoxburgh drawing was the original of that plate — of 

 this we have in the Department of Botany a beautiful coloured 

 * Asiatick Researches, ix, 389 n. 



