CORRESPONDENCE OP RAY. 467 



grow wild, or are commonly cultivated in gardens here in 

 Europe, and hath seen the nondescript Americans, or such 

 as are here less known, growing in their natm'al places, 

 and hath read, considered, and compared, what hath been 

 written of them, either by such who have lived some time 

 in those countries, and published descriptions or natural 

 histories of them, or by such as have only made voyages 

 thither, and given us relations and accounts of their 

 travels, and what they observed during their short stay 

 there, all which qualities concur in our author. 



ThuxUy. This work is of great use to those that are 

 delighted in reading the relation and accounts of navi- 

 gators and travellers to and in those parts, to inform them 

 concerning the names of American and Indian plants, they 

 shall therein meet with, to what plants they belong, and 

 where they may find exact descriptions or characteristic 

 notes of them. The author having with infinite pains and 

 patience read the most part of the books of voyages and 

 travels extant, referred the plants he met with therein 

 named or described to their proper genera and titles, under 

 which they are ranked, and by which they are denominated 

 and characterised by the most learned and skilful herba- 

 lists of the present or immediately precedent age. 



Fourthly. The author in this work hath cleared up and 

 resolved many doubts and difficulties, and informed us of 



what plants are signified by many nam quent in 



the mouths and writings of our own countrymen, of which 

 before we were either ignorant, or in some doubt. For 

 example, he hath informed us that the Dumb-cane so 

 called, which being tasted, inflames the tongue and jaws 

 in that manner, that, for awhile, it takes away the use of 

 speech, is not properly any species of reed or cane, but of 

 arum, or wake-robin; which quality, indeed, agrees very 

 well to the nature of an arum, which is very acrimonious, 

 but not to any sort of cane. That logwood is not (as we 

 conjectured) the Ligiio Brasiliano simile, seu Lignum 

 Sapon, lanis ting endis per commodum of Caspar Bauhine, 

 but Lignum CampecJiianum, so called from Campeche, a 



