on the riortus Malabaricus, Part IV. 203 



Mysore, iii. 135.)- There is, however, a more essential difference which really 

 exists between the two trees. The Potma forms widely extended groves or 

 avenues near villages, with immense stately erect stems, as Rheede says, "est- 

 que vastse niagnitudinis, altitudine nonaginta, crassitie vero duodecim pedum 

 mensuram circiter sequans." The B'mtangor, again, although its stem is very 

 large, grows in a row along the edge of the shore, between the other trees and 

 the sea, over which its stem hangs obliquely. "Arbor ipsa est vastissima, tam 

 crasso constans trunco, ut fere nulla ipsi similem quoad crassitiem gerat, atque 

 hie, uti dictum est, nunquam erigitur, sed semper inclinat — ut vix sub ea de- 

 currere quis possit, ac superior tantum trunci pars parum sese erigit, ita ut 

 ejus viridis modo coma supra aquam sese extendat." Besides, the leaves of the 

 Bintangor are emarginated ("superius subrotunda ac parum fissa, seu bifida"), 

 which is by no means the case with the Ponna. The divisions of the flower 

 are also more numerous, and the flowers themselves larger in the Bintangor 

 than in the Ponna, being composed of nine or ten leaves, and as large as the 

 flower of an Apple-tree, while the leaves in the flower of the Ponna are eight 

 in number, and the flower is no larger than that of the Hepatka. 



The elder Burman, however, both in his Commentary on Rumphius and in 

 the Thesaurus Zeylankus (131.), had no doubt of the Bintangor maritima 

 being the same with the Ponna. The synonyma, however, which he gives pro- 

 bably belong to the plant of Ceylon, no doubt the same with that of Malabar, 

 because he says, " arbor est inter Canelliferas frequens," that is, it grows in 

 the sandy groves near the coast, like the Ponna, instead of lining the edge of 

 the shore, like the Bintangor. Burman rejects the American synonyma adopted 

 by Plukenet ; and the only plant, except the Bintangor quoted by him, which 

 seems to be different from the Ponna, is probably the Focraha of Madagascar, 

 for it may be doubted whether a tree of Malabar is likely to be found in that 

 island. 



Older botanists, as Vaillant, rejecting the unmeaning generic names Jrbor 

 Indica of Plukenet, and Prunifera seu Nucifera of Ray, had called this tree 

 Kalophyllodendron ; but, this being barbarously long, Burman called the genus 

 Inophyllum, and this species I.Jiore octnfido ; but Linnaeus, with his usual spirit 

 of innovation, changed the name given by his friend into Calophyllum, and in 

 the Flora Zeylanica (201.) he called this species C.foUis ovalibus, omitting 



VOL. XVII. 2 E 



