315 
his posthumous 'Museum Zeylanicum ' fp. 26) published bv 
Sherard in 172(5, is referred to J : "Pengru 
V" [" , ' '//,,,/,, }> , } , „,<<x^mU 
stands for -I',;,,,,,; ,„*>* » , /.,.. „, U1 . m nl , tll , name hy whici 
the grass is still known in Ceylon. Nicolaus Grimm • a con- 
temporary of _ Hermann, also | :l lso for a 
S/ er » ! time r f ident at Colombo, calls it "Arunda huli*, 
ofarata, and says of it : « Its lower part is like that of cane and 
the upper like a grass. The root is rather hard, splits like wood, 
and is very fragrant; it resembles somewhat OakmtM, and is 
divided into joints of equal length and nodes. It grows rather 
copiously n ear the town of Colombo. . . By distillation a iim 
oil is prepared from it, which in small doses contains all the 
virtues of the plant, comforting the stomach and aiding the 
digestion when it is disturbed by cold, slimy or foetid humours. 
JL 1 ! 8 . ? est remed y in cases of obstructed menses, and 
accelerates them. A watery infusion has the same power. The 
plant is very good for cold and hot baths in beri-bori and in ill,' 
diseases mentioned above." Hermann's 
With the ordinary Citronella grass as i 
bouth Ceylon, and there is no doubt in my mind that the grass 
was already in cultivation in his rim,., so that Crimm's note as 
to the grass growing copiously near Colombo would refer to 
plantations of the grass. 
., Linnaeus, like other writers before him, was inclined to find 
tne Nardus Indica " of the ancients in some reed-like grass, and 
tninking that Hermann's Pengriman might be it, called it 
Andropogon Nardus. In connection with this, it may be of 
interest to point out thai Camus ai,<! IVn/.isr foundf, in the so-called 
™, Hu-U.-ium at M„drn:i. which was formed between 1565 and 
to! a P ortion of a shoot of C Nardus under the name of 
■^PUo Xardu." Others saw in h tin, old Calamus arumaticus, 
dUil f t niiiya-.Tiially have been offered, under that or a similar name, 
"2 European drug-shops. Thus, for instance, there is attached to 
Hermann's specimen in the British Museum the note— in whose 
nand I do not know—" Calamus odoratus officinarum." 
Confusion weth Lemon Grass.— The Citronella grass early 
shared the fate of the other aromatic Andropogoneae by becoming 
almost hope I essl\ L-nnfn.-.. I. It vas \m-li,+ win. tir- 1^1 I 
suggested that it was identical with the 'Ginger grass' of 
o"mllain ((./. fh-.ewtsus) ana the cultivated 'Lemon grass' 
(< I-, a trains), and' it sterns in have be: n known for a long time 
°3 the latter name; but as 'Lemon grass' was very gonerally 
Put down as ' Andropnr/,.;} .v ■ - >..-W„^,' Citronella was also 
referred to by that name, chiefly l.y pharmacists an. I 
chemists. Then, the French name JW • Lemon grass' being 
citronelle,' the latter term also found its way i- 
literature, originally as a synonym of « Lemon grass ' in the wider 
sense, and later on more especially of the ' Ceylon lemon grass,' 
* Grimm.. Labor. Ceyl., p. 120, ex Burinann, The*, jfeyi (1736), p. 35. 
t Camus and Penzig in At ~ jL 1V '- ( 188o )> 
P. rfd (of reprint). 
* Alnslie , Mnt. Med. (1813), pp. 115 and 128. 
