366 



Correction of certain errors in Dr. Balfour'' s communication to the 

 Botanical Society of Glasgow. By G. A. Walker Arnott, 

 L.L.D., F.L.S., &c. 



In the last number of the ' Phy tologist ' (Phytol. ii. 319), are two 

 statements rather startling to the systematic botanist, and which per- 

 haps you will allow me to correct ; they are the more remarkable as 

 coming from one who holds a public appointment as teacher of 

 Botany. 



The learned Professor states that he exhibited to the Botanical So- 

 ciety of Glasgow specimens of several species of Cypripedium from 

 various parts of the world, among which were some from Brazil ; and 

 on the authority of Steudel's * Nomenclator Botanicus,' asserts that 

 there are four species natives of that country: of course, as Steudel 

 gives no descriptions, and as Dr. Lindley appears to be ignorant of 

 so many, Dr. Balfour must, before affirming this, have consulted the 

 ' Flora Fluminensis,' which is the original authority for all these spe- 

 cies ; but on the other hand, I feel somewhat puzzled how any one 

 who knows what a Cypripedium is, did not at once perceive that only 

 one of the four can belong to the genus ; the other three exhibiting 

 the truly tropical forms of Orchidaceae. The only true Brazilian spe- 

 cies is probably the same as that in Von Martins' herbarium, noticed 

 by Dr. Lindley, and supposed not to be distinct from what has been 

 likewise found in Guiana. Two species only can therefore be said to 

 grow in South America, on the eastern side of the Andes. The geo- 

 graphical distribution usually assigned to the genus can therefore be 

 scarcely said to be invalidated by these aberrant and very little known 

 species, for although six are enumerated as natives of tropical Ame- 

 rica, four belong either to the Andes of Peru, or to the north of the 

 isthmus of Panama. 



But the other statement contains an important error in medical 

 Botany, in so far as Dr. Balfour refers the Mudar plant of India to 

 Calitropis gigantea of Brown. Various memoirs have been written 

 on the subject, particularly in India, but since 1835, when Dr. Wight 

 took up the subject in the Madras 'Literary and Scientific Journal,' 

 p. 69, the old hypothesis of C. gigantea being the Mudar plant, has 

 not been revived till now, by Dr. Balfour. The properties of the two 

 are different. The difference between the species was in some 

 measure pointed out in the ' Proceedings of the Calcutta Medical and 

 Physical Society ' for 1824, but Dr. Wight, by giving a figure of the 

 Mudar plant, with dissections of the gynostigium, enabled all to com- 



