NAMES AND OBSERVATIONS ON INDIAN PLANTS. 545 



M. Decandolle's opinion, as well as to the Abyssinian 

 genus, which I had published: — "Non DesmochsetEe sed 

 Saltise species, vid. Catal. PI. Abyssin. in Itin. D. Salt. 

 Cometis nomen restituendum." — R. B. 



M. Guillemin, in the Dictionnaire Classique d' Histoire 

 Naturelle, tom. 4, p. 356, states that M. De Jussieu, who 

 examined, or at least saw, the specimen in M. Delessert's 

 Herbarium, recognised it to belong to Amaranthacecp., and 

 that M. Decandolle regarded it as a species oi Desmochceta. 

 M. Gnillemin himself, in adopting M. Decandolle's opinion 

 proposes to apply to that genus the older name Cometes ; 

 and he adds that in a manuscript note in Burmannus's 

 specimen I have proposed to do the same thing. But from 

 that note, which I have already given verbatim, it appears 

 that my proposing to restore the name Cometes referred to 

 Saltia, and not to Desmochceta, to which it was evident to 

 me Cometes did not belong. 



In the Linnean Herbarium the specimen named Cometes, 

 I believe in the writing of the younger Linnaeus, proves to 

 be a plant belonging to Convolvulacea, and it is probably a 

 species of Convolvulus or Ipomcea. 



Burmannus (\n Flora Indica) has given the specific name 

 of Surattensis to his Cometes, and that name Linnaeus has 

 adopted in his first Mantissa. In the twelfth edition of the 

 Systevm Natures (vol. ii, p. 127), published in the same 

 3'ear, but subsequently to the Mantissa, he changed the 

 specific name to alternifiora, no doubt derived from the 

 account of the inflorescence given both by Burmannus and 

 himself. It is, however, not a very apt name for a plant 

 whose flowers are always in threes, though the common 

 peduncles are generally alternate. I have therefore recurred 

 to the original name. 



Sir James Smith, in a (pencil) note on the specimen in 

 the Linnean Herbarium, though aware that the specimen 

 is not really Cometes, supposes the specific name last given 

 by Linnaeus to have been suggested by it. This might 

 have been the fact had that name been alternifolia, which, 

 when he wrote the note, I have no doubt he believed it to 

 be ; but the actual name alferniflora could not well be 



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