313 



NOTES FEOM THE NATIONAL HEKBARIUM.— I. 



[Under this heading it is proposed to publish items of in- 

 formation which accrue during work in the National Herbarium, 

 and which it seems worth while to place on permanent record, 

 as elucidating the history of some of the plants contained therein, 

 and specially of the older types. The Notes w T ill be contributed 

 by members of the staff and others ; those forming the present 

 instalment are by Mr. Britten. — Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



" Camellia axillaris Roxb." The plant figured under this 

 name in Bot. Reg. 349 and Bot. Mag. 2047 (both in Feb. 1819) 

 is, as pointed out by Dyer in Journ. Linn. Soc. xiii. 330, 

 Gordonia anomala. The diagnosis preceding Ker's description 

 (Bot. Reg. 349) is latinized from " Roxburgh MSS. in MSS. Banks 

 conservato " ; Dyer (L c.) says " I have tried to trace this MS. in 

 the Banksian Library, but without success"; it is however the 

 MS. Flora Indica mentioned in this Journal for 1902, 420, 

 which Ker frequently consulted ; the description, which is in 

 Roxburgh's hand, is taken from vol. ii. p. 1522**, Sims quotes 

 the same description as from "Roxb. fl. Ind. inedit.," but does 

 not mention the Banksian library. The word " downy M is 

 rendered by Ker " sericeo," by Sims " villoso." According to Ker, 

 it was introduced by Roxburgh from Pulo-Penang to the Calcutta 

 Garden. Dyer (I.e.) says " if it was obtained from Penang, it can 

 only have been from a garden"; this may well have been the case, 

 although Roxburgh distinctly says " a native of Pullo-pinang." 



Ceratites amcena Solander ex Miers Apocyn. S. Amer. 18, 

 t. lc. When revising our Apocynacea I came across this plant, 

 which was first published by Miers (Lc). Its general appearance 

 at once suggested that it did not belong to the order, and a closer 

 inspection indicated Bubiacece for it. Mr. Spencer Moore 

 examined the specimens and identified it with Budgea eriantha 

 Benth., a plant collected by Gardner and, curiously enough, by Miers 

 himself, who rightly identified it and whose specimen is accom- 

 panied by a pencil drawing of dissections of the flower. It must 

 however be remembered that the memoir on the Apocynacece was 

 Miers' last work, published in his eighty-ninth year, and that it 

 contains abundant evidence of failing memory. A careful ex- 

 amination of the National Herbarium, on which it is largely based, 

 has failed to bring to light plants stated by the author to have 

 been seen by him therein ; while in the printed account the words 

 " non vidi " are in several cases appended to descriptions of 

 plants which Miers himself wrote up in the Herbarium. Ceratites 

 is* duly retained in Apocynacece by Schumann (Engler & Prantl, iv. 

 2, 144), and no doubt seems to have been hitherto expressed as to 

 its position. 



Crepis prjemorsa Tausch. Babington includes this plant in 

 his Flora of Iceland (Journ. Linn. Soc. xi. 315) with the following 

 note : " Solander states that he found it at Hafnarfjord. It is 

 included in all the lists from the time of Konig ; but no localities 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 45. [September, 1907.] 2 a 



