APPENDIX. 59 



ftructed in the fcience for which at leaft I had fliewn this 

 attachment, that I could not diftinguifh the plant before us 

 from the acacia vera. Is the knowledge of botany fo no- 

 torioufly imperfect in England, or is the pre-eminence fo 

 eftablifhed in France, as to authorife fuch a prefumption of 

 ignorance againft a perfon, who, from his exertions and en- 

 terprife, fhould hold fome rank in the republic of letters 

 among travellers and difcoverers ? 



Of 



A compliment was paid me by the Count de Buffon, or 

 by fuperior orders, in return for the articles I had prefented 

 to the king's cabinet and garden at Paris, that the plants 

 growing from the feeds which I had brought from Abyffinia 

 fhould regularly, as they grew to perfection, be painted, and 

 fent over to me at London. The compliment was a hand- 

 fome one, and, I was very fenlible of it, it would have 

 contributed more to the furnifhing the king's garden with 

 plants than many lectures on botany, ex cathedra, will ever 

 do. 



But it was not neceffary to mew his knowledge for the 

 fake of contrafting it with my ignorance, that Mr Juffieu 

 fays this bauhinia is by Mr Bruce taken for an acacia vera. 

 Now the acacia vera is a large, wide-fpreading, thorny, hard, 

 red-wooded, rough-barked, gum-bearing tree. Its flower, 

 though fometimes white, is generally yellow ; it is round or 

 globular, compofed of many filaments or ftamina; it is the 

 Spina Egyptiaca, its leaves, in fliape and difpofition, refem- 

 bling a mimofa ; in Arabic it is called Saiel, Sunt, Gerar ; 

 and ifM. de Juilieuhadbeen at all acquainted with the hiflory 

 of the eaft, he mufl have known it was the tree of every de- 

 fert, and confequently that I mufl be better acquainted 

 Vol. V, K with 





