No. 889. 
RAUWOLFIA NITIDA. 
Class. Order, 
PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
This genus was named by Plumier in ho- 
nour of L. Rauwolf, a native of Augsburg, 
and a pupil of Rondelet. He sailed from 
Marseilles in 1573 for the Levant, and per- 
formed a laborious and dangerous journey 
through Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and 
Egypt, of which he left an account in Ger- 
man, full of curious information relative to 
medical and other rare plants, with several 
wood cuts. He died physician to the Aus- 
trian army in Hungary, in 1606. 
Our plant is a native of mos a 
woods in the West Indies, s 
the height of twelve feet, and for €-— 
smooth and shining erect shru ib, abo 
with viscid milk. The fruit is at first yel- 
“Jow, then purplish black, thrice the size of 
à pea. Linnzus's figure, in the Hortus |] 
Cliffortianus, was drawn by Ehret from a 
plant which flowered in the Chelsea garden, 
of course before the year 1736. 
Itis a me stove de not particularly 
VOL. IV 
