180 Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



Perin Kara, ^.51. tab. 24. 



In the plate the specific name is by mistake Perhn. Commeline in his 

 observation justly remarks, that this Kara is a quite different species (genus 

 in the Linneean sense) from the former, and that it is not an Olive, as the Por- 

 tuguese and Dutch pretend. Botanically speaking, no doubt, he is right ; 

 but the fruit of the Perin Kara has a resemblance so strong to an Olive, both 

 in appearance and in several qualities, that it must strike every one ; and 

 accordingly the fruit of the Olive by the Bengalese is called Jolpayi, the name 

 which they give to the Perin Kara. Both Commeline in the Flora Malabarica, 

 and Ray in his History of Plants, called it "Olea sylvestris Malabarica friictu 

 diilci," a name by no means appropriate, as it is as much cultivated in India as 

 the Olive is in Europe. Ray afterwards in the Dendrologia is said to have 

 abandoned the idea of its being an Olea, and called it a Primus, which was 

 no improvement. 



Plukenet in the Mantissa (175.) refers it, with doubt however, to page 355, 

 line 26, of the Almagestum, which is, " Sorbi Alpime (forte) species Arbor Ame- 

 ricana durioribus serratis foUis ex Insula Jamaica?," which, he says, is repre- 

 sented in ^. 3 1 8. /. 1 . of the Phytographia ; but this figure seems to represent 

 aJiisticia, and there is certainly here some typographical error: t. 318. y. 2. 

 has a considerable resemblance to the foliage of the Perin Kara, and may be 

 that which Plukenet meant ; but if it is a Sorbus, it can have no affinity to tlie 

 Perin Kara, and at any rate, as a production of America, it is probably not 

 the same plant. 



Burman (Thes. Zeyl. 93. t. 40.) considered the Perin Kara as the same with 

 the Weralu of the Ceylonese, which Herman took for a Laurus ; but Burman 

 properly constituted it a new genus, and called the plant " Elaiocarpos folio 

 Lauri serrate, floribus spicatis," and both are no doubt of the same genus, but 

 I doubt much of their belonging to one species, for he says, " nucleum cris- 

 pum;" but that of the Perin Kara is smooth ; and this has rarely four divi- 

 sions in the flower, while in the plant of Burman such seems to be the common 

 number. Linnaeus in the Flora Zeylanica (206.) changed the Elaiocarpos of 

 Burman into Elaeocarpus, and properly rejected the synonyma of Plukenet and 

 Sloane, quoted by Burman, but he does not doubt of the IVeralu and Perin 



