BISH AND ATIS. 119 
specimens which were too young to allow of accurate determination; thus mislead- 
ing Hamilton, who referred them to the genus Caltha as C. Bisma, б. Nirbisia, and 
С. Codua. A part of Hamilton's specimens was sent to the India House, and can- 
not be traced, while another was, with the bulk of his collections, ineorporated in 
Wallich’s herbarium, which already contained a number of Aconites from Nepal and 
the countries immediately to the west. Wallich attempted to reduce Hamilton's imma- 
ture plants to certain of his species with what result may be seen from his catalogue 
under Nos. 4721 and 4723. Wallich’s own specimens were collected in 1818, 1819, and 
1821. | 
At the end of 1817, Wallich sent, with the sanction of the Hon. E. Gardner, 
Resident at Kathmandu, a Rajput of the name of Bharat Singha, who had been 
employed in a similar capacity by Dr. Hamilton, and a Portuguese, the son of an 
old servant of Dr. Roxburgh, to Nepal for the purpose of collecting roots, seeds, and 
specimens, and they returned in October 1818. There is no doubt that this is the 
expedition during which the first specimens of the supposed Nepal Bik plant which 
Wallich sent to Europe was collected.. They are (two sheets) at present in the her. 
barium of the British Museum, accompanied by a label in Wallich’s handwriting, 
saying: “ Aconitum atrox, Wall. Bicks, Bickma, Napalensibus.” Independent of Wallich’s 
collector, Gardner employed his own men in collecting plants for Wallich, and it must have 
been through this channel that the latter received the second set of samples of the same 
plant іп 1819. This also is represented in the British Museum by a specimen with a 
label by Wallich: “ Aconitum ferox, Wall. Radix venenata officinalis apud Napalensi- 
bus, E Napalia, 1819." Another went to A. P. Пе Candolle, and this was described 
by Séringe in his Esquisse d'une Monographie du genre Aconitum (read іп February 
1822 before the Société de Physique de Genéve) under the name proposed by Wallich 
on the label accompanying the species, namely, Aconitum ferrz. Finally, when Wallich 
was in Nepal in 1820 and 1821, he himself collected the same plant оп Sheopore 
(Sivapore) Mountain, immediately to the north of Kathmandu. Ап excellent specimen 
of this is in Sir W. Hooker's collection now at Kew, labelled by Wallich * Aconitum 
ferox, Wall. Nepal" and dated by Sir W. Hooker “1821.” I also refer to the same 
collection a number of specimens of А. feroz іп the Copenhagen herbarium, which 
Prof. Hornemann received from his countryman Wallich independently and previous 
to the distribution set. All these Wallichian specimens agree absolutely with each other, 
and they leave no doubt as to the purely botanical question, which plant is to be under- 
stood under “Aconitum ferox Wall ex Séringe"; but it was unfortunately not the 
species or rather one of the species which yield the common Bikh of the bazaars, 
although it belonged almost certainly to the class of the РИЙ Aconites. I say 
unfortunately because under the circumstances the assumption that Wallich had actually 
discovered the plant producing the Bikk poison became soon the source of an almost 
interminable confusion. Wallich himself received an Aconite through a native collector 
from Gossainthan and another through Mr. Blinkworth from Kumaon, and, it seems, a 
drawing and notes concerning a further species from Dr. Govan in Sirmore,—all supposed 
to yield the Bikî. He was not unaware that they differed in certain respects, but, 
probabiy prepossessed by the idea that they all supplied the same article, he assumed 
that the plants he was dealing with were rather states of a very variable plant, depen- 
dent on differences of situation, than distinct species. Here is whet ke says in Plantae 
Asiaticae Rariores i, p. 35: “This plant varies - considerably, according to the situation 
