303 
species. With the discovery of more powerful or more pleasant 
aromam these oil-grasses gradual lv l-.st their importance m- rv<m 
Ml out of i R , lUu in our own dav tli • hLhlv „ .,-t : ■ -re 1 arc of iv,-. 
1,1 ll x his ^ ^"1 "ii ill n UMn.hhi v,\, 1 dm tw 1m tli.-ir 
I <:reited that demau [ for their oih which has foun ( its 
response in the development of.tr- ,V . .-,- ,? .-, 1 tstrvinCevlon, 
India, and to a less degree in the Malay Peninsula and in Java. 
Out of the 12 grasses treated here, only four are worked commer- 
cially ; but there is no doubt that* others are to he found, 
among their African congeners, which might be 
:v place new essential oils at the 
disposal of the manufacturers of perfumes and perfumed articles. 
The genera to which those 12 species belong are Oumboooaon 
Jirli lo.aud V.th-r;,, and A »?■„},,,.,, 
The following paragra oimi <>i the'a history, 
1. Cymbopogon Schoenanthus, Sprang. 
first edition of his 8 . 101(1, ... ,, 
»v< t :i«.utl y the case, his diagnosis is ucmrly iiwifliohmt for identi- 
fication. It consists of the specific phrase of the L>h/»rus, No. diJo. 
of his Flora Zeylanica (1717). On the other hand, his references 
leave no doubt whatever that he meant the "Herba Srh>,m<u\thi" 
°r lit- .-arlj,.,- heri>;di.Nts and the pharmacopoeias of his time. He. 
moreover, states this expressly in his Materia Med tea i l.l'J). p. oh 
^'n-i-e be also indicates Arabia as the native country of the species. 
i'CL-ies Plantarum, it is true, lie a Ided •■ India " to the dis- 
tribution area of Andropogon Sc/m -nanlh-'*. He cannot have 
known of the exum-mmoi this -i ech > into North- Western India; 
the reason for the addition must therefore be sought somewhere 
else. As this addition has led almost from the very beginning to 
great confusion, it appears necessarv to examine the circumstances 
r fiai may have guided Linnaeus. Was it the inclusion of the Ceylon 
La jurns into the synonymy of the species, ov did he possess 
specimens from India which he thought were identical with the 
Arabian " Herba SchoenaulU ." the h> nidation of his species? 
I take the case of the Flora Zeylanica first. There the passage 
concerned, and referred to above,'is made up of diagnostic phrases 
of the "Herba Schoenanthi" of a citation from Burmmns 
^'Thesaurus Zevlatiicus,* p. K<7. ami of another from Hermann's 
'-Museum ^eylanicum,' p. 66. Burmann himself. I.e., quotes 
Hula-net. A mi. Neither Piukeiiet s 
text and figure, nor the original which is still preserved iu his 
herbarium at the British Museum leave us in doubt as to Ins 
having the officinal •■ Herba S. 't > n irdlv " in view. < 'one, run g 
nermann, however, this is what he says : «Kaland»rn : (jraimm 
Dactyion Zeylanicuin radice tuberosa, aromatica, dulci, odorata." 
Kalandura is a name still in use in Ceylon, and applied to 
