OBSERVATIONS 



ON THE 



BATIS MARITIMA OF LONiEUS 



BY JOHN TORREY, F. L. S. , 



The Batis maritima is a common maritime shrubby plant of the West India 

 Islands and the neighboring parts of the continent; but it is surprising that no 

 correct description of its flowers and fruit has hitherto been published, nor has 

 its place in the Natural system been satisfactorily determined. Lindley says, "that 

 British botanists should be ignorant of the structure of one of the commonest 

 plants in one of the oldest colonies is certainly a thing not to be proud of."* 



The plant appears to have been first noticed, more than one hundred and fifty 

 years ago, by Sloane, in his Catalogue of the Plants of Jamaica,t and afterwards 

 in his history of that island,J under the name of Kali fruticosum cqniferum, jlore 

 alho. He gives no description of the plant, except what is contained in this phrase, 

 and merely adds one or two observations respecting its uses. 



In 1756, P. Browne, in his Civil and Natural History of Jamaica,§ first gave 

 this plant its present generic name ; and his description is very good, considering 

 the time when it was pubhshed. 



Linnaeus briefly characterized the genus in the second edition of his Species 

 Plantarum (1763), || but he gave no additional information respecting it, and seems 

 to have drawn his description entirely from Browne. The only habitat that he 

 records is Jamaica. 



In the Stirpium Americanarum Historia of Jacquin, published in 1763, IF is a 

 good description (except of the male flowers and the fruit), with a rude figure of 

 the plant. There is another figure of it in the Plant. Amer. Pict.,** of the same 

 author, a scarce work, without date, which I have never been able to find. It 

 seems to be a later edition of the Historia, with more numerous and colored plates. 



* Hook. Lond. Jour. Bot. 4, p. 1. f Page 60 (1696). % I. p. 144 (1707). 



§ History of Jamaica, i. p. 366. || P. 1451. T" P. 261, t. 40, f. 4. 



** P. 246. 



