350 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol IX. 



In writing the above description of this plant, I have mainly followed 

 Rheede, Rumphius and Boissier, who show a very accurate knowledge 

 of it. There are many points, however, in their remarks, as in those 

 of other writers to be named hereafter, which require special notice ; 

 and I shall refer to them under this head as occasion requires. 

 First then, with regard to its name, I have adhered to that given 

 by Linnaeus. Boissier observes that the specific name Thela coccinea* 

 had to be substituted by Loureiro for Plumbago rosea of Linnseus 

 {rosea meaning rose-coloured, pink or rosy), because the colour of the 

 species we are considering was deeper than that of the pinkest 

 coloured rose. It was distinctly scarlet. For, says Boissier, "the 

 corolla is never rosy in this plant."t To this, however, Sir William 

 Hooker, presumably the writer of the letter-press accompanying the 

 excellent plate in Curtis's Botanical Magazine under No. 5363, gives 

 a very pertinent reply, albeit ingenious, in the following words i— 

 " The flowers are one and a quarter inch long in the tube and more 

 than an inch broad, remarkably secund, and the colour is bright 

 brick-red, partaking of nothing of that purplish hue which induced 

 Linnaeus to call the species ' Rosea '. Perhaps Loureiro and Boissier 

 had this variety (or this coloured variety at least) in view when they 

 gave it the name of coccinea, biit the difference is hardly such as to 

 justify the change of the old Linnsean and well-established name of 

 Plumbago rosea to P. coccinea as Boissier has done. Popularly, 

 too, the rose is red." 



This reminds me of my school-days, when every class-book I bought 

 I scribbled with the couplets : — 



" The grass is green, 



The rose is red, 



This book is mine 



Till I am dead ; 



Steal it not for fear of shame, 



For under lies the owner's name. 11 



Of the authorship of these lines I am still in the dark as much as 

 I am with regard to their pretension to verse. The conclusion I draw, 



* Thela, from the Greek Thele — papilla, so named from its papillose calyx (J. D. 

 Loureiro ) ; Coccinea meaning red or scarlet. 



t To quote Boissier's own words — tt Corolla numquam in hac planta rosea est." D. C, 

 Prodr., vol. sii, p. 693. 



