"VOL. LXXVII.] I'HILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTIONS. 287 



upon the different species of liver of sulphur, and which has been denominated 

 hepatic gas, is nothing more than a sulphureous inflammable air, which may be 

 formed synthetically, as well as all the other species of sulphureous gas. 



XXXI. Botanical Description of the Benjamin Tree of Sumatra. By Jonas 



Dryander, M. A, Libr, R. S. and Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences 



at Stockholm, p. 307. 



Though Garcias ab Horto, Grim, and Sylvius, were acquainted with the real 

 tree from which Benjamin or Benzoin is collected, their descriptions of it are so 

 imperfect and insufficient for its botanical determination, that succeeding 

 botanists have fallen into many errors concerning it; and it is remarkable, that 

 though this drug was always imported from the East-Indies, most of the later 

 writers on the Materia Medica have conceived it to be collected from a species of 

 Laurus, native of Virginia, to which, from this erroneous supposition, they have 

 given the trivial name of Benzoin. This mistake seems to have originated with 

 Mr. Ray, who in his Historia Plantarum, vol. 2, p. 1845, at the end of his 

 account of the Arbor Benjoifera of Garcias, says: "Ad nos scripsit D. Tan- 

 credus Robinson Arborem resiniferam odoratam foliis citrinis praedictae baud ab- 

 similem transmissam fuisse e Virginia a D. Banister, ad illustrissimum Praesulem 



D. Henr. Compton, in cujus instructissimo horto culta est. Arbor ista Vir- 



giniana Citri, vel Limonii foliis Benzoinum fundens, in horto reverendissimi 

 Episcopi culta." 



This error was detected by Linnaeus, but another was substituted by him in 

 its place; for in his Mantissa Plantarum Altera, he tells us, that Benjamin is 

 furnished by a shrub described there under the name of Croton Benzoe, and 

 afterwards in the Supplementum Plantarum, describes again the same plant, 

 under the name of Terminalia Benzoin. M. Jacquin, who had been informed 

 that this shrub was called by the French Bienjoint, supposes, with reason, that 

 the similar sound of that word with Benjoin, the French name for Benjamin, 

 may have occasioned this mistake.* 



Since that period Dr. Houttuyn has described the Benjamin tree of Sumatra; 

 but for want of good specimens has been so unfortunate as to mistake the genus 

 to which it belongs. It is hoped therefore, that the following descriptions may 

 not be unworthy a place in the Philos. Trans.; they are made from dried speci- 

 mens procured from Sumatra by Mr. Marsden, p. r. s. at the request of Sir 

 Joseph Banks, Bart. p.r. s. and clearly prove that this tree agrees in the parts 

 of fructification with the Styrax of Linnaeus. 



Styrax Benzoin. S. with oblong, acuminated leaves, downy beneath, and compound racemes of 

 the length of the leaves. 



* Hort. Vindob. vol. 3. p. 51. 



