Sentra 
323 
‘Indica, remarks : “Siree of the Dutch and native Portuguese in 
-India,” ‘Siree’ (recte Sereh) being the Malay name by which the 
grass was then known—as it is now—in Java, whence Antonio 
Palia brought it to Paliacut. Browne’s account with its almost 
dramatic actuality was entirely lost sight of. Yet, it is evident 
that the name “lemon-grass”’ arose either out of the “ Gramen 
citratum,” or more probably concurrently with it out of the same 
association of ideas; in print it appeared for the first time in 
1804, in Donn’s third edition of his Hortus Cantabricensis (p. 183). 
There it was applied to a grass which in 1786 had been introduced 
by Banks from the East Indies, as we know from Aiton’s second 
edition of his Hortus Kewensis (vol. v., p. 427). Under the same 
name it was grown at Kew in the beginning of the last century, 
and . Wallich* relates that Dr. Maton, Physician to Queen 
Charlotte “has repeatedly been treated with a dish of Lemon- 
grass tea by Her Majesty who used to be very fond of it 
and was. supplied with the plant from the Royal Gardens at 
Kew.” There are no specimens of that plant at Kew or at 
Cambridge; but there is a sheet at the British Museum, evidently 
from Banks’ herbarium, written up “ Hort. Dr. Roxburgh,” and 
below that “Novis. culta (Mr. Lambert) Lemon-grass,” which 
contains two identical specimens. My explanation is this :—in 
1786, Roxburgh was in Samulcotta where he had established a 
garden, and it is from this garden (Hort. Dr. Roxburgh) that — 
Banks had the seed from which the lemon-grass of Cambridge 
and Kew was raised. Later on, Lambert too hed some plants of 
the lemon-grass in his garden. They flowered, and a panicle from 
these was preserved and placed along with Roxburgh’s specimen. 
There is no date ; but the handwriting on the back of the sheet is 
that of Dryander, and therefore not later than 1810. Those speci- 
mens allow us to establish with absolute certainty the identity of 
the “lemon-grass” of the English gardens of those days. In 
India itself, the name “ lemon-grass” may, as I suggested above, 
have originated and spread even earlier. In any case, Flemingt — 
says, that “* many Europeans (viz., in India) have given the name 
of lemon-grass” to what he calls ‘ Andropogon Schoenanthus 
(W),’ whilst Ainsliet (1813) quotes it under the Tamil name, 
Vasana pillu. At the same time, the term soon assumed the 
character of a nomen genericum, as people in India became aware 
that there were, besides the garden grass, other wild grasses of 
similar appearance and properties. ‘Thus we find Heyne (probably 
before 1812) using, on a label with a specimen of C. coloratus, 
the expression: “a lemon-grass.”’ Similarly, Ainslie § (1813) 
speaks of the Travancore grass (C. fleauvusus) as a variety of lemon- 
grass. Others spoke of “lemon-grasses,” and a recent writer in the 
Tropical Agriculturist|| uses the phrase “27 species of lemon-grass.” 
Others, neglecting the differences between the various kinds 
of Jemon-grass, differences. which were never_clearly stated, 
admitted only one lemon-grass and implicitly postulated the 
identity-of, for instance, the citronella grass with the “ Gramen 
— a, 
* Wallich, Plant. As. Rar., vol. iii, p. 48, tab. 280. 
+ Fleming in Asiat. Research, vol xi, (1810), p. 156. 
t Ainslie, Mat, Med. (1813), p. 128. 
§ Ainslie, l.c., p. 116. 
|| Tropic. Agricult., vol, xxiii. (1903), p36. 
