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XVIII. A Description of Duchesnea fragiformis, constituting a 

 new Genus of the Natural Order ofSenticosce of Linti/zus, Rosacece 

 of Jussieu. By James Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S. P.L.S. 



Read April 3, 1810. 



Having lately had occasion to study the genus Fragaria, I was 

 led to consider the plant figured and described by Mr. Andrews 

 in his Repository, t. 479, by the name of F. indica, which struck 

 me as, in many respects, very remarkable, and probably consti- 

 tuting a new genus. That it is no Fragaria is apparent from the 

 fruit, which is represented like that of a Ruhus. In sliort, the 

 plant in question, with the habit of a Fragaria, has the yellow 

 flower and ten-cleft calyx ofaPotentilla, and tlie fruit of a Rubus, 

 differing essentially however from the latter in its calj'x, as well as 

 in its habit altogether. I am enabled to bear testimony to the 

 accuracy of Mr. Andrews's representation, by means of a spe- 

 cimen gathered by Dr. Buchanan in Nepal, now in my posses- 

 sion, accompanied with a description drawn up by that excellent 

 botanist on the spot. 



In the name of this new genus I wish to commemorate the 

 merits of M. Duchesne, author of the Histoire Naturelle des 

 Fraisia's published at Paris in \766, justly termed by Hallcr " an 

 excellent little book," in which the varieties of Strawberries are 

 so accurately described, and their synonyms so well illustrated, 

 that I cannot but wonder it did not more excite the attention of 



Linnaeus, 



