614 PLANTS JAVANlOffi RARIORES. 



more limited than Ventenat appears to have done; con- 

 sidering it as sufficiently distinct from B/dtneriacece, to 

 great part of which, however, Ventenat's two principal 

 characters of Sterculiacece equally belong. 



221] In endeavouring to establish the characters andaffini- 

 tiesof Pterocymbium, it became necessary to examine those of 

 the established genera most nearly related to it, and as this 

 examination has led me to adopt considerable alterations in 

 arrangement, and enabled me to make some additions to 

 the number of species, I shall here give the characters of 

 the genera and species of that tribe to which the name of 

 Stercidiece has been applied by DeCandolle and Endlicher, 

 prefacing that account with a history of the tribe, and espe- 

 cially of the genus Sterculia, from its formation to the 

 present time. 



In the botanical history of Sferculia, it is not necessary 

 to go farther back than 1747, when Linnaeus first published 

 his character of the genus, 1 founded on the specimens and 

 unpublished figures of Hermannus, whose Ceylon herbarium, 

 of which the Museum Zeylanicum is a catalogue, had been 

 sent from Copenhagen for his inspection. The result of a 

 careful examination of this herbarium was the publication 

 in 1748 of the 'Flora Zeylanica/ 



Hermann's herbarium (purchased by Sir Joseph Banks 

 and now in the British Museum) contained flowering 

 specimens of Sterculia fcetida and Balanglias, and the fruits 

 of both species were figured by Hermann himself in the 

 volume of drawings which accompanied the herbarium. 

 From these materials, confirmed no clonbt by the figures 

 of the fruits in 'Hortus Malabaricus' and 'Herbarium 

 Amboinense, 5 the Linnean genus was entirely established. 

 The character given, however, is strictly applicable to 

 Sterculia fcetida only ; and Linnaeus was probably induced 

 to refer Bcdavglias to the same genus, either from not 

 having distinctly seen the remarkable form of the flower in 

 that species, or, which is more likely, disregarding that 

 difference, was determined by the exact resemblance in its 



1 'Nova Genera Plantarum, respondents Basso?*:? p. 13. 



