174 MEMOIR ON A NEW PLANT 



pretended merit of being the firft difcoverer of any pro- 

 dudlion to which chance might as well have direded the 

 fteps of the moft ignorant as thofe of the moft learned 

 naturalifts, as to withhold from you any thing 1 know 

 relative to the fubjed. Dr. Barton, with whom I fpoke 

 on my return from Wilmington, informed me that Mr. 

 Muhlenberg had mentioned it in his catalogue of plants, 

 under the name of Ixia followed by ? that it has fmce 

 been fent to England to Mr. Smith, by the name of Bar- 

 tonia clandeftina, that this Englifh botanift thinks it a 

 new genus. Probably it has been but imperfedly ex- 

 amined by thofe who feat it to Mr. Smith, fmce they 

 themfelves furname it clandeftina. Nor has Mr. Smith 

 himfelf publilhed any defcription thereof. We may then 

 regard it as a new plant not defcribed in any work. 



In my opinion, this plant fliould be placed in the fame 

 clafs with the Pontederia, to which it feems very nearly 

 related in the natural order. I will not hefitate then to 

 place it with the Narcifli, clafs III. order VII. according 

 to Juffieu's method. But this naturalift has himfelf feen 

 the genus Pontederia^ as well as many others, which he 

 has defignated as not having a perfeit affinity with the 

 narciffi, genera narcijjis fion omtiino affi/ila, ought to be 

 feparated from them ; and that he only places them thus 

 until their proper order fhall be determined, donee horum 

 veriis ordo conjliterit. I Ihall only then, at prefent, fliow 

 the place of the new plant I have the honour to prefent 

 you. it cannot b£ clalfed with the narciffi, for it is want- 

 ing in one of their principal characters, viz. that of ha- 

 ving fix ftamina. The difference in the number of 

 ftamina has not however, Gentlemen, determined me to 

 make a new genus of it inftead of uniting it with the 

 pontederia ; for if it only differed from it in this refpedt, 

 it might a^ well belong to the pontederia, as the vakria77a 

 ruhra, cakitrapa^and cornucopia: , to the Valeriana, the two 



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