28 ME HIERN, ON EBENACE^E. 



(vi) The EBENACE.E of the University of Dublin, extremely rich in South African 

 plants, got together by the late Dr Harvey. 



(vii) The EBENACE^E of Dr Bonder's herbarium of Hamburg, also rich in South 

 African plants. 



(viii) The herbarium of Dr Van Heurck at Antwerp. 



(ix) The royal herbarium belonging to the botanical garden at Brussels, containing the 

 private collection of the late Von Martins, the editor of the "Flora Brasiliensis." 



(x) The royal herbarium at Leiden, where is the best collection in Europe of plants 

 indigenous to the Malay archipelago. 



(xi) The imperial herbarium at Berlin, where also is the important type-collection 

 of Willdenow. 



(xii) The imperial herbarium at Vienna. 



(xiii) The royal herbarium at Munich, which is especially rich in Brazilian plants. 



(xiv) The type-herbarium of De Candolle at Geneva. 



(xv) The Delessert herbarium also at Geneva. 



(xvi) The herbarium of the Paris Museum, which contains the best collections from 

 Madagascar and New Caledonia, the herbarium of Jussiew, and a very large general col- 

 lection of plants. 



(xvii) The EBENACE..E of the fine Angolan collection made by Dr Welwitsch with 

 extraordinary care and true scientific judgment in the expedition undertaken by the 

 Portuguese government from 1853 to 1860. 



(xviii) The Australian collection of the great botanist Brown, now the property of 

 Mr Bennett, late of the British Museum. 



I have also been favoured with the manuscript of the African genus Royena belonging 

 to the late Dr Harvey, which he had prepared but not completed for the " Flora Capensis ;" 

 I have taken up some new species of Royena which Dr Harvey had briefly described in 

 this manuscript. 



Dr Thwaites, of the royal botanical garden at Peradenia in Ceylon, has with much kind- 

 ness supplied me with fresh flowers in spirit, as well as dried flowers, belonging to Ebena- 

 ceous species indigenous to that island, and published by him in his "Enumeratio Plantarum 

 Zeylaniae." 



ECONOMIC PRODUCTS, &c. 



The economic properties of Ebenacese are principally connected with the wood and the 

 fruit, though other parts in some species are of value and importance. The valuable wood 

 known by the name of Ebony is a black hard and heavy wood, produced for the most 

 part by members of this family. Other families, however, such as Leguminosce, Sterculi- 

 acece, Bignoniacece, &c. supply different kinds of wood that are also called by the name 

 of Ebony. Bertolini in Miscellanea Botanica, VIII. p. 1 (1849), discusses the various claims 

 of different plants to represent the ebony of the ancients, and decides in favour of a 

 Leguminous species, which he calls Fornasinia ebenifera. For an account of ebony and 

 its varieties, a paper may be consulted which was contributed by Mr P. L. Simmonds in 

 the Art Journal for 1872, pp. 66 68. Ebony is confined to the heart-wood of the trees 



