158 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



stood the natives of Malabar, it is the fruit which is called Tani ; for they 

 called the tree Tani Cai Maram {Tani fructus arbor'), Buchanan's Mysore, 

 ii. 342. 



The plant of C. Bauhin {Fructus in insula S. Marice, pyra majora referens 

 intus muciilentuni), with which Commeline compares this, can scarcely be the 

 same, on account of the size and mucilaginous quality of its fruit, and is pro- 

 bably rather a Mabolo or Diospyros than a Myrobalamis, although Plukenet 

 rather thinks it a Syalita {Dillenia), which, however, he confounds with the 

 {Artocarpus) Bread fruit {Mant. 124.). In his Index he mentions the Tani, 

 but without a reference to the part of his work where it is to be found, nor 

 have I been able to discover the place. 



Commeline afterwards called the Tani a Primus, in which gross error he 

 was followed by Ray and the elder Burman {Thes. Zeyl. 197.) ; the latter, 

 indeed, was still further in the wrong, because he confounded it with the 

 Dematha of the Ceylonese, which is the Gmelina asiatica, as Linnaeus, in 

 rejecting Burman's synonyma, rightly observes {Fl. Zeyl. 230.). 



Gaertner considered the Tani as the same with his Myrobalamis Bellirica 

 {De Sem. ii. 90. t. 9". ubi errore BelUrina dicitur), and certainly the fruits of 

 the two plants are extremely similar ; but the form of the seed and locula- 

 mentum is different, in that of Rheede being circular, and in that of Gaertner 

 being angular. Whether or not the latter was right, in considering his plant 

 as the Myrobalanus Bellirica of Blackwell and Breynius, I cannot say, not 

 having it in my power to consult these authors ; but he says that Blackwell's 

 figure is bad, or, in other words, does not entirely resemble his plant. M. Poiret 

 {Enc. M^th. vii. 5/6.) seems doubtful whether Gaertner was right in quoting 

 the Tani for his Myrobalanus Bellirica, and in the Supplement (iii. 707-) to 

 the Encyclopedic states this doubt more fully. Dr. Roxburgh does not quote 

 {Hort. Beng. 33.) the Tani for the Terminalia Bellirica, which is a name not 

 mentioned by Willdenow, although I suspect that Dr. Roxburgh's plant is 

 what Willdenow calls T. Chebula, because he says, " foliis obovato-oblongis," 

 while the Chebula of Dr. Roxburgh, the same with that of Retzius, has folia 

 ovata. The Tani has folia obovata, and may therefore be the T. Chebula of 

 Willdenow. In this case the Tani cannot be either the M. Chebula or M. Bel- 

 lirica of Gaertner ; the former on account of the difference in the form of their 



