Contributions towards a Flora of Ceylon. 489 



corolla in his specimen is only 6 lines long. It must be ob- 

 served, however, that unless very carefully dried the corolla 

 in all the species shrinks very much. 



Obser. II. — This species was first noticed in Wallich's 

 catalogue, in the year 1828,* at n. 6394, under the name of 

 Glossanthus malabaricus, Klein MSS., but no character of 

 it was published till Mr. Bentham did so, in 1835, at p. 57, 

 of his " Scrophularinese Indicae." Since then Mr. Brown has 

 ascertained, that a Mexican plant which M. Schlechtendal 

 published in the " Linnaea" for 1833, under the generic 

 name of Klugia, is a congener of the present species ; but 

 in place of following the excellent law of adopting the name 

 under which a genus has been first described, he adheres to 

 that of Wallich's catalogue in his article on Cyrtandrem in 

 Horsfield's " Plantae Javanicae Rariores." M. Alphonse De 

 Candolle in his father's posthumous article on the same tribe, 

 in the 9th Vol. of the " Prodromus," has, on the contrary, 

 adopted Schlechtendal's name ; and I here follow him, as I 

 believe that the law of priority of description ought to be 

 rigidly adhered to. Had earlier attention been paid to this 

 golden rule, much of the confusion which has crept into the 

 synonymy of natural science, through the adoption of mere 

 manuscript and catalogue names, would have been avoided. 



Obser. III. — Mr. Brown doubts whether his genus Loxotis 

 {Rhynchoglossum, Blume) ought to be generically distin- 

 guished from this. Besides the difference which he has 

 pointed out in the nature of the stamens, Loxotis differs 

 from the Indian species of Klugia, at least, in having the 

 racemes springing from the axills of the leaves. They are 

 perhaps, however, too nearly related to be kept asunder. 



KLUGIA GLABRA, Gardn. 

 K. glaberrima, calyce 5-angulato, angulo superiore basi 

 alte alato-cristato, caetris exalatis. 



* This is the date of the preface to the catalogue. 



