2 



AETOCAEPUS 



Kheede, in the same book (p. 25, t. 32), describes for the first time, under the name 

 Ansjeli, a fourth species of Artocarvus (A. hirsuta, Lamk.). In Sonnerat's Voyage to Neiv 



Guinea (p. 29, t. 57—60), the Bread-fruit is described and figured as Rhna 



Amongst post-Linnrean botanists the first considerable additions to the genus were 

 made by Blume, who, in his Bijdragen (published in 1825) described for the first time 

 the four species pubescens, Bl. (not of Willd. and = A. JBlumei, Tree.) ; elastica t Reinw. 

 (probably only a form of A. incisa); rigida, Bl. ; and glauca, BL Roxburgh, in his Flora 

 Indica, published in 1832, added to the genus three species not previously described, 

 viz. Lakoocha, Roxb., Chaplasha, Roxb., and lancecefolia , Roxb. ; while, under the specific 

 name hirsuta, Lamk., he described the Ansjeli of Rheede, and under that of echinata, 

 Roxb., lie re-christened the previously-described A. rigida of Blume. The next contri- 

 bution of importance to the botany of this genus is contained in a paper on the 



Artocarpees published by Trecul in 1847, in the Annates des Sciences Natufelles, ser. iii, 

 vol. 18. In this paper Trecul gives a revision of the genus, arranging the fifteen 



species of which he had seen good specimens into two groups, which he called Jaca 

 and Pseudo-Jaca. Of the fifteen species described in that paper, six are described for 

 the first time, namely, two Malayan (Gomeziana, Wall., and glaucescens, Tree); th 

 from the Philippines ( Camingiam, Tree. ; nitida, Tree. ; and lanceolata, Tree.) : and 



ree 



one 



from the Ladrones (Mariannensis , Tree). Four species, namely, glauca, BL, pubescen 



Willd. ( = hirsuta, Lamk.), laevis, Hassk., and lancecefolia, Roxb., Trecul had never seen, and 

 these he does little more than enumerate. Of the second and fourth of these four 

 there are excellent specimens in the Calcutta Herbarium, and they are evidently per- 

 fectly good species. Of the first and third I have as yet seen no authentic specimens. 



Miquel is the next botanist who contributed to any considerable extent to our 



knowledge of this genus. In his Catalogue of Zollinger's Plants, his Flora of Netherlai 



India (vol. i, pt. 2), in his Sumatran Supplement to the same work, and in the 



third volume of the Annals of the Leiden Museum, this author describes no fewer than 

 twenty-two new species from the Malayan regions. A large number of these new speci< 

 were, however, founded on such imperfect material that, from Miquel's descriptions alone 

 it is simply impossible to identify his plants; and it is only by inspection of the 

 actual material on which the author worked, and which is contained in the Herbaria 



at 



Leiden and Utrecht, that it is possible even to guess what these species are. Descriptive 

 botany of this sort is worse than useless, for it imports elements of doubt, confusion and 

 uncertainty into all subsequent determinations ; and it is much to be regretted that Miquel 

 did not allow the imperfect Malayan material to lie undescribed until such time as it 

 could be supplemented by completer specimens. That this might possibly not have been 

 accomplished during his own lifetime, was a consideration which should have had no 

 weight with a botanist of Miquel's calibre and standing. Besides these described by the 

 authors already mentioned, species of Artocarpus were described by Zollinger (1 species) 



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