126 -Dr. Francis Hamilton's Commentary 



presented to the India House [Cat. No. 1526). I shall here 

 annex the synonyma which seem to me really to belong to it. 



Gossampinus alba. 



Bombax pentandrum. Ilort. Kezc. iv. 196. Hort. Beng. 50. 



Willd. Sp. PL iii. 731. Enc. Meth. ii. 551. Bunn. Fl. hid. 



145. (exclusis synonymis forte ad plantam Americanam 



pertinentibus, ut et Flttkenetii.) 

 Ceiba pentandra. Garin. de Scm. ii. 244. t. 133. /i 1 ? 

 Xylon foliis digitatis caule inermi. Linn. Fl. Zeyl. 220. 

 Eriophorus Javana. Herb. Amb. i. 194. t. 80. 

 Panja seu Panjala. Ilort. Mai. iii. 5*^. t. 49 — 51. 

 Arbor Gossampinus. Plinii Hist. Nat. I. xii. c. 10, 11. 

 Swet (alba) Shimul Bengalensium. 

 Habitat in Indiœ sylvis rariiis, 



Gœrtner neither mentions from whence he had the fruit, nor 

 the manner in which it opens, which renders it doubtful whether 

 he describes this or the American plant. 



MouL Elavou, ;^. 6l. tab. 52. 



This is one of the most common trees in India, and is remark- 

 able in spring, when it has no leaves, for an immense quantity 

 of bright red tiowers. On this account it is most probably the 

 Arbor lanigera, seu Gossampinus P/iiiii of Bontius. The cathar- 

 tic powers which Rheede attributes to its roots and fîowers are 

 extraordinary in this tribe of plants, chiefly remarkable for a 

 mild mucilage ; and would seem, if well founded, to imply a 

 necessity of separating it from the proper Malvacea. 



On account of the prickles on the stem, the fallacious nature 

 of which character I have noticed in commenting on the Her- 

 /)arium Amboinense, Plukenet considered it as perhaps the same 

 with his Gossipium seu Xylon arbor occidentale digitatis foliis per 



marginem 



