164 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



caution he is not followed by the elder Burman, who, without hesitation, not 

 only joins the plants of Rheede, Herman and Plukenet, but unites with these 

 the Malum Granatum Delima of Rumphius (Herb. Amh. ii. 94. t. 24./. 1.), 

 and the Arbor Granata of Grimm, which are no other than the common 

 Pomegranate, and thus attributes all its virtues to the Catu Naregam {Thes. 

 Zeyl. 111.). 



These errors were too gross for subsequent botanists, among whom I 

 have not been able to trace any notice of the Catu Naregam. It belongs, 

 however, to that assemblage of plants called Gardenia by Linnaeus, or rather 

 by his editors, who have under this name included several very distinct genera. 

 On account of the number of stamina, very uncommon in this natural order, 

 the Catu Naregam comes nearest the Gardenia Thunbergia {IVilld. Sp. PI. i. 

 1226.) ; but it differs in being thorny, and, what is of more importance, in the 

 structure of the fruit, that is to say, if the fruit of the Gardenia Thunbergia 

 has actually four cells ; but it is very possible that it may have only two, each 

 being again divided by a process from the septum, separating the seeds in 

 each cell into two masses enveloped by a congeries of pulp and membranes, 

 so that the whole may readily be mistaken for four cells. But a fruit divided 

 into two cells, each containing many seeds fixed to the septum medium by a 

 longitudinal receptaculum, is what constitutes the real generic character of 

 the Randia [Gcertner De Sem. t. 26.) not well distinguished from the Genipa 

 {t. 190.) and Tocoyena {t. 190.). If the membrane lining the outer parietes of 

 the fruit be indurated into a ligneous substance, we have the fruit of the Poso- 

 queria {t. 195.) or Ceriscus (t. 140.), a distinction, perhaps, too minute to sepa- 

 rate these plants from the Randia, as resting merely on a greater or less degree 

 of induration in the same organ; but the true Gardenias {t. 193, 194.) are 

 abundantly distinct, from the want of any division in the fruit, and from the 

 seeds being annexed to the outer parietes instead of to a septum medium. 

 The Catu Naregam has perhaps, therefore, the same generic characters with 

 the Gardenia Thunbergia, and ought not, perhaps, to be separated from the 

 genus Randia, as I have defined it, unless the number of stamina be con- 

 sidered sufficient ; for the Randias have only half the number of stamina, and 

 among the Rubiacece this is of considerable importance ; but when the habit 

 is so similar, and the number of species moderate, such a difference deserves 



