THREE EARLY JAMAICAN BOTANISTS 107 
it is interesting to note that Lindsay pining Dutrochet in hig 
observations on the mechanism of the motion in the leaves of the 
Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica). Sir J. E. Smith i in his inane: 
tion to Botany, ed. vi. p. 33 (1827), Rad to a paper by Mr. Lindsay 
in the leaf-stalk of the Mimosa pudica, or Sensitive Plant, to be 
the oe of irritability.” In the Quarterly Journal of Science, 
1827, p- 76, Herbert Mayo, in a communication of some 
observations on the same subject made by Mr. Burnett and 
8 researches, which he 
says ‘are to be met with in a MS. (eee in the library of the 
Royal Society, which is dated July, 1790. 
In dedicating to him the fern genus Lindsea, Dryander refers 
to andeny as ‘an assiduous and skilful botanist’’ (Trans. Linn. 
Soc 0). Specimens from Lindsay sent to Banks from 
Jamaica are contained in the National Herbarium. He died i in 1803. 
GEDEON BONNIVERT 
(fl. 1673-1703). 
By James Britten, F.L.S. 
In the course of cataloguing the contents of the Sloane Her- 
barium I came across three volumes (H.S. 84*, 85%, of 
plants Reeser by Gedeon Bonnivert; and on eénsulting the 
Index to the Sloane MSS. I found so many entries under his 
be 
anticipation, and is, I think, of pa general intere 
warrant a more ites nsive account of Bonnivert than can fin 
place in the catalogue of the Sloane Herbarium. His notes upon 
Irish plants are of special interest; the two or three specimens 
preserved in Herb. Sloane, to be referred to later, are, I believe, 
with the srg of Lhwyd’s of a year or two earlier, the first 
Trish plants extant. 
The only casi of Bonnivert’s origin is on a slip in Sloane 
MSS. 1000, f. 3: “‘Gideon Bonnivert* son to Paschall Bonni- 
vert and Judith his Wife born at Sedan in Champaigne. 
This is unfortunately undated, and were it not for the dates 
in his commonplace books, the earliest of which is 1673, we 
* The name is variously spelt by contemporaries * Bonivert” and 
Bonavert ”; the Christian name is written by himself in his note-book 
“ Gedeon,” but his signature is usually ‘‘ G. Bonnivert. 
