63 
inability to distinguish a species with stellate-pubescent carpels 
from one with lepidote carpels has been that Koenig’s suitable 
name and excellent diagnosis were not published. 
It is possible that the younger Linnaeus was guided by the 
judgment of Burmann, who, in 1768, when publishing figures 
of two specimens of this particular species, both of them collected 
by Garcin, named one ot them Croton tinctorium (Fl. Ind. t. 62, 
fig. 1). It may be that Burmann was to some extent influenced 
in his decision to refer the second specimen of the same plant 
to Croton hastatum (l.c. t. 63, fig. 1) by the circumstance that 
the latter was collected at Surat, the former in Java. Later 
authors have at times been impressed by another difficulty when 
Batavia from seed collected at Surat in 1723, still so young 
when it was collected that it had not lost the characteristic first 
pair of leaves or developed the shape and lobing characteristic 
of the leaves of a fully grown plant; the figure of Croton 
hastatum, Burm. f., non Linn., represents the upper portion of 
a fully developed plant of the same species gathered at Surat 
in 1724. 
We do not know whether Garcin gave these specimens, or if 
he only lent them to Burmann. We may suspect that they were 
only lent, because they are not in the Burmann herbarium now. 
In that herbarium, however, there still are two specimens of 
this species. One of them was sent to Burmann as *‘ Croton 
arvense, Koen. Nelle-tschendi. Koenig n. 463.’ The other was 
collected by Sonnerat, also in South India. We know that 
officer in the service of the King of Denmark and before his 
transfer to that of the Nawab of Arcot. We know, too, that 
fter 
me year as his own, 
‘bore the name Croton asper (or asperum), published for the first 
time, without description, in 1814 (Rorb. Hort. Beng. p. 104). 
It may be that when Burmann passed the proof of his figure 
of Croton hastatum, he was under the impression that the plant 
-depicted really was Croton hastatum, Linn. ‘The fact that the 
plate is so inscribed has led Miiller to remark (DC. Prodr. xv. 2, 
