402 APPENDIX D. 



Linnseus, who, in the Hortus Cliffortianus, in 1737, described 

 it, from dried specimens, under the name of Sideroxylon 

 spinosum. " From Clifford's Herbarium," observes Mr. Dry- 

 ander, " now in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, the Argan 

 was taken up by Linn6 in his Hortus Cliffortianus; though 

 most of the synonyms are wrong, and consequently the locus 

 natalis (utraque India) which is deduced from them. The 

 specimen in Linn^'s Herbarium, under the name of Sideroxylon 

 spinosum, is without flowers, and it is impossible to tell you 

 with any certainty what it is. Clifibrd's Herbarium is there- 

 fore the only authority by which this species can be ascertained." 

 Linnseus's Rhamnus siculus, in the Appendix to the third volume 

 of the twelfth edition of the Systema Raturce, is, we are assured 

 by Mr. Dryander, " the Argan, or Olive-tree of Marocco (see 

 Host's ' Efterretninger om Marokos,' p. 284), as appears from 

 the specimen in Linn^'s Herbarium, which has a ticket aflSxed, 

 with the name of Argan of Marocco, and which I have also 

 compared with specimens in Sir Joseph Banks's Herbarium from 

 Marocco.'' The description, too, of Linnseus is very correct. He 

 errs only in considering the plant to be the same as the Rhamnus 

 Siculus pentaphyllos of Boccone (Rhus pentaphyllum, Desf.), 

 which has folia quinata, which latter he introduces into the 

 specific character, but not into the description ; and he errone- 

 ously followed Boccone in giving Sicily as the native country in 

 addition to Africa, and in adopting the specific name Siculus. 



' In the Species Plantarum of Linnseus, Malabar alone is 

 mentioned as the native country of the Sideroxylon spinosum. 

 Nevertheless, with the exception of Willdenow, who rejects it 

 altogether as " planta valde dubia, forte nuUibi obvia," most of 

 the older authoi'S adopt this name for the Argan of Marocco. 

 Under it, it appears in the first edition of Hortus Kewensis, 

 with the reference to' Species Plantarum of Linnseus, and to 

 Commelyn, Hortus Amstelod. tab. 83, where, however, nothing 

 is said of its native country, further than may be surmised by 

 the name adopted from Breynius's " Lycio similis frutex Indicus 

 spinosus, Buxi foUo " (which, as already observed, Willdenow 

 considered to be his Flacourtia sepiaria, from India), and of 

 which the flowers and fruit were unknown to the author. If 

 this were the Argan, it was in cultivation in Holland as early 

 as 1697. At a period not much later, viz. bx 1711, according 



