332 
aquarium of the Montpellier garden, it was probably introduced 
there between 1804 and 1811. This was the time when the 
‘lemon-grass’ was in cultivation at Kew and Cambridge, and proba- 
bly also in other English gardens. These facts, the equivalency of 
the names ‘Lemon-grass’ and ‘ Andropogon citratum, and the 
description of the odour of the Montpellier plant which exactly 
fits that of ‘lemon-grass,’ are enough to suggest very strongly 
that De Candolle’s Andropogon citratus was actually ‘lemon- 
grass.’ He may have had it from England; but not necessarily 
so; for about the same time a grass was growing in the Jardin des 
Plantes at Paris under the name of ‘ Andropogon Nardus, Pers. 
Syn. citriodorum, which later writers admit to be the same as 
De Candolle’s Andropogon citratus. Desfontaines* (1815) gives 
Mauritius as the country whence it came. The only Mauritius 
grass which might be taken for Andropogon Nardus is the ‘lemon- 
grass, which may very well have been in cultivation there at 
the beginning of the last century, although it is not actually 
mentioned as coming from there before 1837. Thus De Candolle 
and Desfontaines may easily have had it from the same source, 
namely, Mauritius. However this may be, the plant remained in 
cultivation for some time. It is mentioned in the Turin catalogue 
of 1821, the Berlin catalogues of 1821 and 1827, the catalogue of 
the Jardin des Plantes of 1829, etc. ; but it does not seem to have 
flowered anywhere, until in 1833 it did at last flower at Berlin and 
in 1835 at Breslau. Link,t who records the flowering at Berlin, 
identified it with Ventenat’s figure of ‘Andropogon Schoenanthus’ 
( = Andropogon pruinosus, Nees) and reduced it accordingly to 
Andropogon Schoenanthus, L. Nees,t who was then Director of 
the Botanic garden at Breslau, also considered that it agreed with 
Ventenat’s plate of Andropogon Schoenanthus, but, as he was well 
aware that Ventenat’s plant could not have been what Linnaeus 
meant by that name, he took up De Candolle’s name, and reduced 
Andropogon Schoenanthus, Vent. (non Linn.),as a synonym to 
Andropogon citratus. He, however, also gave a description of the 
plant, as it grew at Breslau, and this at once excludes the identity 
of his and Ventenat’s plants, the latter of which he evidently knew 
only from the figure. This description was buried away in an 
~—~article in the ‘Allgemeine Gartenzeitung’ of 1835, pp. 265-267, 
and became so entirely lost sight of, that except for a citation in 
Pereira’s ‘ Materia Medica,’ I can find no reference to it. Unfortu- 
nately, no specimen seems to have been preserved of the Breslau 
plant. Nees was convinced that hisand De Candolle’s Andropogon 
citratus were identical. On the other hand, his description also 
agrees well with the Andropogon Schoenanthus of Roxburgh, 
that is, the ‘ lemon-grass,’ save as regards two characters. Firstly, 
he says the hermaphrodite (sessile) spikelets are awned, which 
they only very exceptionally are in lemon-grass; and, secondly, 
he describes the outer glume of the hermaphrodite spikelet as 
having 5-6 green nerves in the upper half, whilst I have hardly 
ever found more than two intracarinal nerves and more often find 
none at all. However, he may have counted the keels with the 
nerves, which would very nearly account for his number of nerves, 
* Desfontaines, Tabl. Ecole Bot. ed. 2 (1815), p. 15. 
+ Link, Hort. Berol., vol. ii. (1833), p. 303. 
£ Nees in Allgem. Gartenzeit., vol. iii. (1835), p. 266. 
