ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY. 131 
Stalagmitis and Xanthochymus are therefore one genus, as Cambessides has already observed, 
giving the preference to the earlier name of Murray. This, however, forms but a small part o 
the whole specimen, the larger portion being, I am inclined to think, the same with your plant, 
of which I have seen, and I believe still possess, the specimen you sent to Don.* The struc. 
ture, however, of this greater portion cannot be ascertained from the few very young flower-buds 
belonging to it. It approaches also very closely, in its leaves especially, to that specimen in 
Hermann’s herbarium, which may be considered as the type of Linneus’ Cambogia gutta. A 
loose fruit, pasted on the sheet with Konig’s plant, probably belongs to the larger portion, and 
resembles “* Gertner’s Morella.”’ 
So far all appears clearly in favour of Sta/agmitis, and had Murray in drawing up his char- 
acter rigidly confined himself to the description of the flowers before him, [ should at once have 
adopted his name in preference to Roxburgh’s. But on turning to his character, as given in 
Schreber’s genera plantarum, we find a 4-leaved calyx, a 4-petaled corolla, and a 4-lobed stigma, 
combined with pentadelphous stamens, 3-seeded berries, the stigmas sometimes trifid: stamina 
not always polyadelphous? &c. From this very unusual combination of quinary and quater- 
nary forms [ am led to infer that the character is only partly derived from the specimen, and 
partly, if not principally from notes communicated by Kénig, who, it appears, from the fact of - 
his having combined, on the supposition that they were the same plant, two distinct species, 
was not aware of the difference, and misled Murray by communicating written characters of a 
Garcinia, and flowers of another plant, and between the two, there has resulted a set of char- 
acters not likely to be often found combined in the same species and still less frequently in one small 
specimen, Roxburgh on the other hand briefly and clearly defines a genus of plants well 
known to him, and extensively distributed over India, about which he has scarcely left room 
for a mistake. If further proof be wanted in support of the opinion [ have advanced that this 
is a hybrid genus, I adduce Cambessides, whose authority is quoted for the identity of Sralag- 
_ mitis and Xanthochymus. He has strictly followed Murray, adopted all the contradictions of 
his character and constituted a genus embodying, first, Roxburgh’s genus Xanthochymus, 
next, Petit Thours’ Brindonia, evidently identical with Garcinia, then Loureiro’s Oxycarpus, 
also Garcinia, and lastly, (if [am not misle George Don, whom I am obliged for 
want of Cambessides’ own memoir to follow) nearly the whole of Roxburgh’s species of Gar- 
einia, as if Roxburgh was so bad a Botanist as not to be able, with growing plants before him, 
to distinguish between two genera so very distinct as Garcinia and his own Xanthochymus. 
In a paper which I published in the Madras Journal of Science for October 1836, I showe 
from the internal evidence afforded by the two sets of characters that Murray’s Stalagmitis and 
Roxburgh’s Xanthochymus were partly identical, and attributed the discrepancies to defects of 
Murray’s solitary specimen, a view, which Mr. Brown has shown to be only partly right by 
proving that they in some measure originated in the imperfect observation of Konig, who sup- 
plied Murray with the materials for his genus. 
Having now adduced what I esteem conclusive evidence in support of the opinion I ad- 
vanced above, that Murray’s genus is spurious, and that of Cambessides founded on it, is most un- 
natural, as associating species that never can combine generically: while Roxburgh’s, is a strictly 
_ hatural genus including several nearly allied species, and moreover, probably referable to a na- 
tural order different from more than half of the species referred to it under the name of S/a- 
lagmitis by Cambessides, I consider myself fully justified in continuing to adopt the generic 
name Xanthochymus (even though opposed by the highest Botanical authorities) until careful 
examination of the original speeimen, with reference to the elucidation of the discrepancies I 
have indicated, shal] have proved, that such actually exist in that specimen. If they do exist, 
then the fault is not Murray’s and his name must of right be adopted with an amended charac- 
ter, excluling the numerous species of Garcinia brought under it by Cambessides: if they do 
not, Roxburgh’s genus, which as it now stands is strictly natural, claims the preference. 
* One of those received from Mrs. Walker. 
