ON 'NYMVUJEAGEM. lOS 



Before this time, however, another well-marked species had been discovered at the 

 Cape of Grood Hope by Mr. Francis Masson,' and was received in a living state at the 

 Royal Gardens, Kew, having been bronght to England in H.M.S. " Gorgon," in the year 

 1*792. This species was described by Kennedy in Andrews' Botanical Repository, as 

 N. ccerulea : — 



6. N. ccerulea, Kennedy, Bot. Rep., 1801. 



The above mentioned species were all dealt with in Salisbury's original paper, (ex- 

 cept (5) N. jmbescens, which was subsequently added in the Paradisus Loudinensis), and 

 two others were included for which binomial names had not been published before, viz., 

 an East Indian species named in manuscript, with figure, by Dr. Roxburgh, as N. Coteka, 

 and a plant in Brown's History of Jamaica, " N. folih ampliorihus" etc., which Linnœus 

 had sheltered lander the name of N. Lotus (No. 2 of the i^resent list) ; — 



7. N. Coteka, Roxburgh, MS. 



8. N. foHis amplioribus, etc., Brown, Hist. Jamaica, lYOO. 



The above list of eight numbers represents the materials upon which Salisbury's new 

 genus Caslalia was founded. In dividing the old genias Nymphœa, of Tournefort, into two 

 new ones, he might well have retained the original generic name for the group which 

 contained the greater number of species, and sought a new name for the one that included 

 only three. Instead of doing so, he bestowed the well-established name Nymphœa upon the 

 genus of few species, and selected a new sentimental one of doubtful taste for the larger 

 genus. Not satisfied with this, he, fixrthei', without offering any reason or apology, ignored 

 or changed all the specific names for these plants that had been established, and wore in 

 common use by his contemporaries, substituting others, mostly less descriptive, and in no 

 case preferable. He changed the specific term of Nymphœa alba, essentially the White 

 Water Lily, so named and known familiarly for centuries, to the (in this genus) meahing- 



' The memory of Francis Masson, long forgotten as a Canadian botanical collector, may be revived by 

 recounting here a few particulars of his history. He was an able and industrious collector, through whom the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew received many choice productions, especially from South Africa. Born at Aberdeen, in 

 Scotland, August, 1741, he was first engaged in the service of H's Majesty George the Third, to collect for Kew, in 

 1771 or 1772, (in those days Kew was the King's Garden, and not a public or people's institution as now.) He was 

 sent to the Cape of Good Hope, and remained there till 1 776. Five years more were spent in exploring the Canaries, 

 Azores, Madeira, and parts of tlie West Indian Islands. In 1783, he went to Portugul, thence again to Madeira, and, 

 returning to England in 1785, he prepared for a second voyage to the Cape. He laboured there from 1786 to 1795, 

 when he once more returned to England. In 1796 he published, at London, a folio volume of illustrations of new 

 species of StapcUa, with forty-one coloured plates. In the following year (1797), having intimated his desire to be 

 further employed on foreign service, Sir .loseph Banks mentioned tlie same to His Majesty, wlio was graciously 

 pleased to order him to explore such parts of North America, under the British Government, as appeared most 

 likely to produce new and valuable plants. " On this occasion he perished, in the sixty-fifth year of his age." 

 He died at Montreal, about Christmas, 1805. Francis Masson's name is commemorated in the Cape genus of 

 Liliaceous plants, Massonia, Thunberg, Nov. Gen., of which eight species were described in Hortus Kewensis, all 

 discovered by Masson hini.self. In the Systema Vegetabilium of Schultes, (1830), the number was raised to 

 seventeen, and by Baker, in Linn. Trans., to twenty-five, but reduced in apparent numbers by separation of 

 species referable to Folyxena, Kunth, of the Scillex tribe, Massonia being limited by Baker to species of the Alliese, 

 so that Bentham and Hooker's estimate is twenty. A Carribean Liliaceous plant is named Sloanea Massoni, 

 Willd., Sp. PI., ii, p. 155. 



Sec. IV, 1888. 14. 



