56t> Miscellaneous. 



Nemalion lubricuvi, Duby, (Chordaria nemalion, Agardh,) found 

 by Miss Watt at Skaill, Orkney, being a new genus to Britain. 

 Lastly, a new species cf Striaria, found by Dr Pollexfen in Kirk- 

 wall Bay, Orkney, which he proposes naming S. Grevilliana. It 

 is chiefly distinguished by its irregular ramification. 



Dr Graham read some remarks on a paper published by Dr Wight, 

 in the Madras Journal, (No. 13, p. 300,) which paper contained a 

 commentary on a letter from him to Dr Wight, regarding the gam- 

 boge tree of Ceylon. In this paper Dr Wight mentions that Dr 

 Graham differs from him by having made the following statements : 

 1st, That the plant sent to him from Ceylon, and which he (Dr G.) has 

 since named Hebradendron gambogioides, is the only one which pro- 

 duces gamboge Jit to be used in the arts ; 2d, That the Hebradendron 

 gambogioides is the plant which yields the true Ceylon gamboge ; 

 3d, That Drs Wight and Arnott were mistaken when they asserted 

 that the Xanthochymus ovalifolius is the only indigenous plant in 

 Ceylon that produces gamboge fit to be used in the arts ; and 4th, 

 That Hebradendron gambogioides is a native of Ceylon. 



Dr Graham showed, by reading the extract from his letter which 

 Dr Wight himself had published, that he never made one of these 

 statements, except the second, the accuracy of which he is quite pre- 

 pared to maintain, having proved, by his own experiments and those 

 of others, that the concrete juice of Hebradendron gambogioides is 

 excellent gamboge, chemically, medicinally, and as a pigment, — and 

 knowing from the perfectly unexceptionable authority of Mrs Walker 

 that it is collected in large quantity in Ceylon. The first statement 

 Dr Graham not only never made, but it is opposed to the opinion 

 which he actually holds ; although information, he thinks, is still re- 

 quired on the subject. On the third point there is a threefold error. 

 Dr Graham never maintained that Drs Wight and Arnott had as- 

 serted that Xanthochymus ovalifolius is the only indigenous plant in 

 Ceylon which produces good gamboge. They asserted that it is the 

 only plant in Ceylon which does so; but Mrs Walker has enabled 

 Dr Graham to prove that there is another. He is now farther able 

 to assert that the concrete juice of Xanthochymus ovalifolius cannot 

 be employed advantageously as a substitute for gamboge. The fourth 

 statement Dr Graham never made, and indeed, until lately, he had 

 no information upon the subject ; but recent letters from Mrs 

 Walker, he thinks, now entitle him to say that the Hebrandcndron 

 gambogioides is indigenous in Ceylon,— at any rate certainly enable 

 him to disprove the assertion upon which was founded Dr Wight's 

 opinion that it is not. — W. H. C. Sec. 



