30 REVIEW. [January, 



fact that in Moon's collection were to be found nearly all the species which 

 subsequent Superintendents were able to discover in Ceylon. 



" There is a gigantic forest-tree in the hilly district of the Island, bear- 

 ing a large prickly fruit, and well known to our planting friends as the Katu- 

 hodde}\ which, by a singular coincidence, was supposed by Moon to be the 

 real Durian, Durlo zibetJiinus, and is given as such in his ' Catalogue,' 

 p. 56, but he gives the Singhalese characters for ' Katu-moda,' or ;prichly 

 fool, instead of those for the kattu-bodda, the tree, which was no doubt 

 meant ; while the late Dr. Gardner described at full length, in the ' Cal- 

 cutta Journal of Natural History,' the same tree as Durio zeylanicus. 



" Dr. Wight, on the other hand, has pointed out Dr. Gardener's blunder 

 in supposing the tree to be a species of Dnrlo, and has figured and 

 described it in his ' Icones,' tab. 1761-2, as the Cnllenia excelsa (R.W.). 

 He dedicated the genus in honour of Major-General Cullen, resident at the 

 Court of the Eajah of Travancore, who has devoted a large share of his 

 time to the study of economical botany. 



" Dr. Wight, who is the greatest living Indian botanist, has done much 

 towards illustrating and describing the botany of Ceylon in his ' Icones 

 Plantarum,' ' Illustrations of Indian Botany,' and his other works. 



" Besides the drawings of Ceylon plants made by Mrs. Walker, and 

 sent to Dr. Wight and Sir W. J. Hooker, the Colonel made large collec- 

 tions of Ceylon plants, some of which are at Kew and Oxford. 



" The late gallant and accomplished Lieutenant-Colonel Champion, who 

 received his death-wound in nobly repelling an attack of the Russians at 

 the Battle of Inkerman, paid considerable attention to the botany of 

 Ceylon, and one of the best papers on the subject that we have read for 

 years is one by him on the general and geographical distribution of the 

 botany of the Island, and which appeared in the * Ceylon Calendar for 

 1844.' In an article from the pen of his friend Sir W. J. Hooker we are 

 informed that the lamented Champion had made notes of several new 

 genera and species of Ceylon plants, which he intended publishing if his 

 life had been prolonged. 



" Mr. Thwaites, the accomplished author of the ' Enumeration of Cey- 

 lon Plants,' which has called forth our notice, was appointed superinten- 

 dent of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens in 1849, and is now du-ector of the 

 same establishment. 



" Those who are aware of the labour and almost insurmountable ob- 

 stacles Mr. Thwaites had to contend with in writing such a work as the 

 one under review, will readily admit that he must have worked like a Her- 

 cules for the nine years he has been in the Island. 



" Mr. Thwaites brought with him the very best qualification for scientific 

 botany, and that is, great command in the use of the microscope ; for we 

 know that in the examination of the Diatom aceae, the very lowest class of 



