JACK'S LETTEKS TO WALLICH, 1819-1821. 159 



Krass, a species of Aleurites? 27 I have just examined it, and was 

 at first a little puzzled by it. It appears to have been described 

 under three different genera, Croton, Jatroplia, and Aleurites, I 

 have not the least doubt that the Croton moluceanum and Jatroplia 

 moluccana, see Lanik. Enc. are the same thing; it is quite absurd 

 to compare the two descriptions, which are almost word for word 

 the same, and I should suppose Forster's Aleurites triloba also to 

 refer to the same plant but for the trifid calyx which he attributes 

 to it. I observe in the catalogue, only this latter mentioned; does 

 Roxburgh make them to be all three the same ? The calyx of the 

 male of what I have examined is always bifid. There is here a 

 large tree, at present onlv in fruit, which is called Bua Jiring. 

 I thing it may be Roxburgh's Mimosa Djiringa. 28 I will send you 

 some of the fruit which is very peculiar, the pod being deeply 

 sinuate or lobed on one side, each lobe or articulation monosper- 

 mous and the whole spirally contorted. 



As this letter has already become of rather an unconscionable 

 length, I will have mercy upon you, and here close it. I shall 

 send it to the Post Office to go by any accidental opportunity, 

 which there sometimes is by native vessels or by the way of Madras 

 — which I may not hear of, and write again when I know of a 

 good opportunity. Specimens of course must wait, as they are 

 mostly too large for the l)ak, 2:i but to show that they are not for- 

 gotten, I shall add a few small ones to take their chance, it would 

 be useless to send good ones on a chance opportunity. I am afraid 

 it will be sometime before I hear from you, as your letters will 

 have gone to Bencoolen. As we may leave this about the 20th of 

 Feb., I believe there would hardly be time after the receipt of 

 this, to address me here. 



I am very anxious to have accounts. 



27. Aleurites triloba, Forst. It was a fairly common tree about 

 Calcutta at this time (vide Abbey-Yates, in the Agricultural Ledger, 1907, 

 p. 31). Jatroplia moluccana, Willd. and Aleurites moluccana, Willd. are 

 synonyms. 



28. Pithecolobium lobatum, Benth., is the name which is applied now 

 to Jack's Mimosa Jiringa. Jack published his description in the Malayan 

 Miscellanies, i. No. 1 (1820) p. 14. The fate of the pod which he advises 

 and of the specimens sent with his letter of March 5th is not to be traced : 

 they do not appear to have found a place among the collections which 

 Wallich distributed from 1828 forward, and in this respect are like a 

 great quantity of further material which must have passed into the early 

 Calcutta herbarium but never came out into any other, — Boxburgh 's dried 

 plants for instance and more of Jack's material sent later. It may be 

 suspected that such was lost from want of attention during Wallich 's 

 lengthy visits to Nepal, Singapore, Ava, and the sal forests of Oudh. 

 And Wallich with such losses on his mind may well have become very anxious 

 to carry through his distribution of the East Indian Company's herbarium 

 in order to save the material. 



29. Post. 



It. A. Soc, No. 73, 1916. 



