314 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO J717. 



he has never once named Britain, yet gives so many hints of the excellent eco- 

 nomy of his government, under the prudent administration of his father in-law, 

 Misitheus, that I would fix this work to the third year of his reign, he having 

 before been under the direction of the eunuchs and officers of the court, whom 

 Capitolinus represents, in Misitheus's letter to Gordian, as having prostituted 

 all employments to their own covetousness and mercenary creatures. 



A new Genus of Plants, called Araliastrum, of which the famous Nin-zin or 

 Ginseng of the Chinese is a Species. Communicated by Mr. Faillant* Pro'de- 

 monstrator at the Royal Garden at Paris, to Dr. Wm. Sherrard,\ LL.D. 

 and by him to the Royal Society. N° 354, p. 705. 



Araliastrum is a genus of plants, whose flower a, vid. aralia Inst. Rei Herb, 

 tab. 154, is complete, that is, has a calyx, is regular, polypetalous, and herma- 



* Sebastian Vaillant, M. D. author of the work entitled Botanicon Parisiense, or an account, in 

 alphabetical order, of all the Plants growing in the environs of Paris, as well as of several other 

 publications, was born in the year l6"6'9, and died of an asthma in 1722. The merit of Vaillant, as 

 Dr. Smith observes,* is hardly sufficiently known. Dr. S. declares, that on consulting his Herba- 

 riums, preserved at Paris, he was astonished at the instances of profound knowledge and acuteness of 

 judgment which he met with, both with respect to the genera, species, and synonima, of plants. 

 Vaillant was also one of the first who was well acquainted with the sexes of plants, and his acade- 

 mical oration on that subject, tliough not without some errors, is full of good observations. His 

 botanical papers on the various tribes of plants, &c. occur in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy. 

 + William Sherrard, or Sherwood, so eminent in the science of botany, was born, according to 

 Dr. Pultney, in the year l659, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, till he was entered 

 of St. John's College, Oxford, in the year l677. Of this college he became a Fellow, and took the 

 degree of Bachelor of Law in 1 683. After this time he accompanied Lord Viscount Townshend in 

 his travels, and discharged his trust with so much reputation, that he was prevailed on to take the 

 charge of Wriothesly, grandson of William, the first Duke of Devonshire, during a tour to the 

 Continent. He returned about the year l693, and communicated to Ray a catalogue of such plants 

 as he had remarked on Mount Jura, Saleve, and the neighbourhood of Geneva. During his travels 

 he gratified his favourite passion, and became acquainted with the most celebrated botanists. He was 

 early skilled in English botany, and his assistance is acknowledged by Ray in his History of Plants. 

 About the year 1702 he was appointed Consul at Smyrna, a department which his desire of investi- 

 gating the plants of the east induced him to accept. In this place he had a country house at a village 

 called Scdekio, where he spent his summers, and cultivated his botanical garden. He collected 

 specimens of the plants of Natolia and Greece, and began the celebrated herbarium, which at length 

 became the most extensive that had ever been seen, as the work of one person, and is said to have 

 contained 12,000 species of plants. He returned to England in 1718, soon after which he had the 

 degree of Doctor of Laws conferred upon him by the University of Oxford. In 1721 he again visited 

 the Continent, and made the toor of Holland, France, and Italy. On his return he brought over 

 with him the celebrated Dillenius, so eminent for his attention to the plants now termed crt/ptogamic. 



* See an introductory discourse on the rice and progress of natural history, prefixed to the first volume of the Linnanui 

 Transacttons. 



