222 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



a globe, the capsules of the former being more accurately 

 round, accordmg as its name imports. 



Page 213. I must here beg leave to excuse the cele- 

 brious Dr. Herman, who in ' Cat. Hort. Acad. Ludg.' with 

 good reason separates the Abies conis sursilm spectantihis 

 S. mas, C. B. P., Taxifoliis \Finu8 picea, Linn.], from 

 the Abies alba 8. fcem. ejusd., C. B. P. [P. abies, Linn.] 

 And, indeed, this male-kind does in nothing differ, as I 

 could observe from the short specimen (and it was all 

 that he had) I received from that ingenious and worthy 

 o-entleman, Dr. Tancr. Robinson, Avho gathered it in some 

 noted garden there, and brought it over into England, when 

 with the present Marchioness of Winchester he last came 

 out of Holland ; I say, from what I could observe, it does 

 nothing differ from the female but in the colour of its 

 pectinated leaves, which in om* pattern are green on both 

 sides; in this, of a silver and gaudy hue underneath. 

 And, perhaps, from this lovely gaiety of its silver colour, 

 it mio-ht at first challenge to itself the annex of female, 

 since men are generally apt to appropriate the most ami- 

 able and lovely, and indeed the most excellent of every 

 kind, to the more elegant sex, as we see the more mascu- 

 line arts and sciences are feminine in their names, and, 

 by an universal suffrage, submitted to the dominion of 

 the Muses. 



Casting my eye upon your most curious index at the 

 latter end, which is indeed of necessary use both as to 

 the virtues of those plants contained in the Synopsis, as 

 also in respect of those references you make from the less 

 to their more proper denominations, I found in your ac- 

 count of the Cannabis sativ. the received opinion of an 

 untoward faculty it has of emasculating mankind, and 

 making impotent by extinguishing the fluid principles of 

 generation, and which in some degree hath staggered 

 your resolution what to determine about the Bangiie in- 

 dorum. This, from the testimony of Olearius Acosta, and 

 others, being of frequent use, both among Persians and 

 Indians, to exstimulate and incite to venery, and therefore 



