PHANEROGAMS— PROFESSOR BAYLEY BALFOUR. 53 



agree with him in regarding the three last-mentioned species as one and the 

 same, but Berg expressly states that the species B. gileadense is founded on the 

 A myris gileadense of Linnaeus, the very plant with which Gleditsch contrasts 

 his. How then can the name Balsamea have any claim to adoption and to 

 replace Balsamodendron ? What plant Gleditsch described is a question that 

 does not concern us here, and indeed it is difficult to tell, but certain is it that 

 it is no Balsamodendron. 



Engler has more right on his side when he claims priority for the generic 

 name Commiphora of Jacquin. Undoubtedly the plant described and figured 

 by Jacquin (Hort. Schoenb. ii. 66. (1797), t. 249) as Commiphora madagascari- 

 ensis is a Balsamodendron, and Jacquin 's name is much the older. But surely in 

 the circumstances of this case considerations of convenience ought to outweigh 

 the demands of arbitrary laws. The significant name Balsamodendron is now 

 commonly accepted, not only by botanists but by pharmacists and physicians, 

 and is indeed current in general literature, and the substitution of another name 

 would be almost impossible, and would certainly lead to much confusion. How 

 poor, too, is the name Commiphora beside the suggestive Balsmodendron ! Had 

 the alteration to Balsamea been legitimate, such objection would, for obvious 

 reasons, have less force. Bentham and Hooker {loc. cit.), with set purpose, place 

 Jacquin's name as a synonym of Balsamodendron, and their lead will be 

 generally followed. Were Commiphora to be now accepted, it would entail the 

 renaming of all the species, some thirty-six, and as they have been already 

 renamed by Baillon and Engler under Balsamea, we should have an addition of 

 some seventy specific names to the nomenclature. Surely this would be an 

 excess of purist zeal and a perversion of means to an end. 



As these pages are passing through the press, Engler's monograph of the 

 Burseraceae in the continuation of De Candolle's Prodromus has appeared. In 

 it he has discarded Balsamea and adopted Commiphora. I cannot follow 

 him in reviving Jacquin's generic name, but retain Balsamodendron as main- 

 tained by Bentham and Hooker, an example which I trust will be, in this 

 country at least, generally followed. 



A genus including some three dozen species, natives of tropical and south 

 Africa, Arabia, and east India. In Socotra there are three endemic species, 

 one distributed in south-west Asia, and possibly two others ; but our material is 

 not sufficient for identification of the latter. 



1. B. Mukul, Hook, in Kew Journ. Bot. i. (1849), 259, t. 8 ; Boiss. Flor. 

 Orient, ii. 3. 

 Commiphora Mukul, Engl, in DC. Monog. Phanerog. iv. (1883), 12. 



Socotra. On Kadhab plain. B.C.S. n. 711. 

 Distrib. Arabia, Persia, and Scindh. 



