GORDONIA. 135 



they appear to have been drawn from the same branch, and not only 

 from the same branch, but from the same branch with the same 

 flower open. But in the letter press there are differences which must 

 be referred to, the most important of which is that, under plate 349 

 of the Botanical Register, Ker, editing for Sydenham Edwards, 

 wrote that the possessors of the plant had got it some years before 

 from the late Dr. Roxburgh, the Superintendent of the Honourable 

 East India Company's garden at Calcutta, and that Roxburgh had 

 got it from Penang : whereas in the Botanical Magazine under plate 

 2047, Sims wrote that it was thought to be one of some Camellias 

 received a few years previously from a Mr. Robarts from China. 



While thus diverging both writers used the name Camellia 

 axillaris referring to a manuscript left by Roxburgh, which the 

 one called a Flora of India and the other merely a manuscript in 

 the possession of Sir Joseph Banks. It is evident from the Botani- 

 cal Register that Robert Brown, then librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, 

 had been consulted; and it is therefore hardly possible to avoid 

 the conclusion that Brown had identified the plant, but we do not 

 know from what, as the published Flora inclica of Roxburgh does 

 not contain Camellia axillaris. 



Roxburgh's connection with this plant is very doubtful. 



It is well known that before Roxburgh's death in 1815 he had 

 furnished to various scientists copies of his Flora, keeping one in 

 his own possession when he sailed from India, with the intention of 

 revising it for publication, and that seventeen years after the 

 father's death his two sons, Captains Bruce and James Roxburgh, 

 caused the part dealing with the Higher Plants to be printed at 

 Serampore in India, it is said " exactly as he had left it." Are 

 we to assume that Banks had in 1819 a copy with late notes which 

 escaped publication in 1832 ? It appears so : for, though Sir 

 William Thiselton-Dyer records (Journal of the Linnean Society 

 of London, XIII, 1873, p. 330) that he had searched in vain for the 

 diagnosis of Camellia axillaris, (i) Brown would be unlikely to 

 misquote, (ii) the two rivals would be unlikely both to misrepresent 

 him, and (iii) the form of the brief diagnosis is just such as Rox- 

 burgh used. It was rendered from English into latin in both works 

 with the term villous for describing the calyx in the Botanical 

 Register but the term silky in its place in the Botanical Magazine. 



So far then we may accept it that Roxburgh appears to have 

 handled a plant from Penang which he called Camellia axillaris; 

 but that does not prove it to be the Chinese plant which was describ- 

 ed under this name in 1819 ; and, indeed, it is more likely that 

 Ker invented the connection of the individual in Whitley, Brames 

 and Milne's nursery with Roxburgh as a sequel to Brown's identifi- 

 cation than that Sims is wrong in saying that a Mr. Robarts sent 

 it from China. In any case the species does not grow in Penang, 

 and though it could have reached Roxburgh via Penang from the 



R. A. Soc, No. 76, 1917. 



