PLATE DCIX. 



CITRUS MEDIC A, odoratksima. 



Bergamot Lemon, 



CLASS XVIIL ORDER IIL 



POLYADELPHIA ICOSANDRIA. Many Sets of Chives. Threads from 



the Calyx or Receptacle. 



Calyx .5-dentatus. Corolla 5-petala. Stamina 

 20 in cylindrum passim connata. Stylus 1. 

 Bacca 9 — 12-loculaiis, pulpa vesiculari. 



GENERIC CHARACTER. 



Cup 5-toothed. Petals five. Stamens about 20, 

 generally united at the base. Shaft 1. Fruit 

 9- to 12-celled, the pulp bladdery. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTER. 

 Citrus foliis acuminatis. || Citrus with pointed leaves. 



Citrus medica /3, Linn. Sp. PL Limon Bergamotta. Folkamer. Hespendes, cap. 26. tab. p. 154. 



REFERENCE TO THE PLATE. 



1. The empalement. 



2. Chives spread open. 



3. The seed-bud and pointal. 



4. A horizontal section of the fruit. 



The drawing of this curious and valuable fruit was also taken at Wormleybury last May. Sir Abraliam 

 Hume informs us, that the plant was introduced in 1785, by Mrs. Evelyn, of St. Clare in Kent, who 

 brought it with her from Nice. The name Bergamot is said by the Chevalier Lamarck (in the French 

 Encyclopedic) to come from Bergame in Italy, where the principal cultivation of the plant lies. The 

 valuable perfume called Essence of Bergamot is prepared in Italy from the fruit, but by what method 

 they extract it we have not been able to learn : it is rather remarkable that England, so celebrated for 

 her commerce, her collections of natural history, and spirit in gardening, and annually importing so 

 much of this Essence, should have been so long without the plant that produced it. 



In arranging the Bergamot for the present as a variety of the Lemon, we by no means subscribe to the 

 opinion of those who, servilely following Linnaeus, include all sorts of apples and pears under his Pyrus 

 mala and communis ; all grape-vines under Vitis vinifera; and limes, lemons, citrons, oranges and shad- 

 docks of all kinds, under his Citrus Medica and Auraiitium. Already the last-mentioned genus has been 

 considerably illustrated by the works of Gmelin, Rumphius, Thunberg, and Loureiroj and Professor 

 Willdenow now enumerates six species of Citrus, and the Chevalier I;amarck eleven species ; and many 

 more are probably yet latent in the unexplored regions of Asia. Indeed it is only to those who have an 

 opportunity of observing them in their original situations, where the spade of the labourer has never 

 disturbed their repose, that we must look for their complete illustration. I'he immense tracts on our 

 northern hemisphere, over which apples are naturally scattered, as well as the vast and permanent dif- 

 ferences observed in their fruits, give us also much to hope for ; even Linnaeus himself observes in his 

 Flora Suecica, that the apple which he found growing naturally in Smoland was very difterent from that 

 which he found in other parts of Sweden ; the original Paradise-apple (Malus pumila of the old authors) 

 has already been recovered by the Russian naturalist Pallas, forming large thickets on the banks of the 

 Wolga and Tanais, (see his Flora Rossica, vol. i. p. 22.) j and the same author informs us that the apples 

 he found growing about the Terek were of a large size, and excellent even in their wild state ; while 

 those that he met v/ith in other parts of Russia were quite worthless. Even in India our indefatigable 

 countryman Dr. Buchanan has discovered five original species of this genus (one of them a quince) 

 growing naturally on the elevated regions towards the snowy mountains. His descriptions of them, 

 however, are yet unpublished, but we have seen his specimens in the collection of A. B. Lambert, esq. 



