oil the Ilortus IMalabaricus, Part III. 117 



taruin called the plant Crateva Tapia, denoting thereby that he 

 meant the American plant, continued to quote the ISiirvala as 

 synon3anous. Besides this error, both authors fell into one 

 infinitely worse, by placing the Tapia and A iirvala in the same 

 genus with the Covalam already mentioned ; the former belong- 

 ing to the order of Capparidcs, while the latter is one of the 

 Aurantiœ. The circumstance which seems to have misled Lin- 

 nœus was, that the Covalam was called Belou by the Jirahmans 

 of INIalabar, while the JSiirvala is their Rana Belou. AVhen 

 Linnœus published the second edition of the Species Flantarum, 

 he separated the plant of Jamaica, calling \i Cratava gijnandra ; 

 and Willdenow {Sp. VI. ii. 853.) separated the Niirvala from the 

 Tapia of Brazil, and joined it to the Cratceva religiosa of Forster 

 and Vahl, of which a figure is given by M. Lamarck (///. Gen. 

 t. 395.)- Although he is followed in this by M. Poiret {Enc. 

 Meth. vii. 582.), yet I suppose that this is an erroneous opinion, 

 as the berry of the Cratceva religiosa is described and represented 

 as globular, and no larger than a small plum, and the leaves as 

 still smaller and shorter than those figured by Flukenet. 



I have already observed what an unnatural genus the Cratœva, 

 as left by Linnaeus, must be considered ; and Dr. Roxburgh 

 wished to abolish it altogether. He therefore not only removed 

 the species (Marmelos) belonging to the order of Aurantiœ, but 

 the remaining plant, that he knew, he considered as a mere 

 Capparis, which he called trifoliuta {Hort. Beng. 41.). Who- 

 ever, in fact, endeavours to point out an essential character 

 common to all the species of Capparis, will find it a diflicult 

 matter to exclude the Cratava. Linnœus seems to have at- 

 tempted it, by removing the Cratava to the class Dodecandria 

 from the class Puli/andria, where he at first placed it close by 

 the Capparis ; but this is trifling : one undoubted Capparis has 

 only nine stamina, and in several Cratavas the stamina are fully 



as 



