INTRODUCTION 



41 



of different genera and families, and some do not agree at all 

 with the descriptions to which they are ascribed. As already 

 noted the artist has frequently depicted the leaves on one scale 

 and the attached inflorescences, flowers, or fruits, as the case 

 may be, on an entirely different scale. Very frequently the 

 leaves are reduced in size, while the other parts may be greatly 

 enlarged. In consulting the Herbarium Amboinense, it should 

 be borne in mind that Rumphius himself never saw the figures, 

 which were drawn by various artists after he became blind (see 

 p. 16). 



Rumphius's idea of the species was not at all that of the species 

 as understood to-day, nor can his chapter heads be considered 

 as corresponding to the modern conception of the genus. As 

 noted by Doctor Robinson in one of his letters to me : 



Rumphius imbibed the native ideas on the relationships of plants, and 

 did his best to improve on them. Now the natives here to-day, and I 

 think certainly also in his time, base their opinions largely on habit and 

 leaf characters, or perhaps on habitat; thus mangi-mangi covers the whole 

 mangrove family (Rhizophoraceae) with Sonncratia thrown in. Also to 

 the characters utilized by the natives in making identifications should be 

 added wood characters, latex if any, taste and smell of leaves, flowers, and 

 fruit. Neither he nor they appreciate the primary value of flowers or fruit 

 or of compound leaves. Again the methods of distinguishing species that 

 we use were entirely unknown to him, as they are to the natives here to-day. 

 We are so accustomed to putting emphasis on simple versus compound and 

 opposite versus alternate leaves; superior versus inferior ovary; and apet- 

 alous, polypetalous, and gamopetalous flowers and the number of their 

 parts, that it is difficult to follow a man who took no count of any of these 

 characters, except as to the compound leaves, while his opposite leaves are 

 often opposite leaflets. He says in one place that a menispermaceous 

 plant "maxime convenit" with what proves to be Derris uliginosa of the 

 Leguminosae; what then about some of the other plants he described that 

 "maxime convenit," when there is no illustration to suggest the identity 

 of the species involved? Take the case of Ternstroemia, Ichthyoctonos 

 montana of Rumphius. It is most excellently described and the illustration 

 is fair, yet in this chapter he describes three forms which differ in the color 

 of the wood and of the roots. It is incredible that in an island of this 

 size that there can be three species of this small and characteristic genus 

 to each of which the description can correspond so far as it goes and yet 

 be worthy of being interpreted as three distinct species of Ternstroemia. 

 There are two possible conclusions regarding it, and many other similar 

 cases, first, that there is really only one species of Ternstroemia and that the 

 differences are merely superficial; and, second, that he had in mind three 

 really different species, not unlikely in as many different families of plants, 

 but that the detailed description applies to one only; the other two forms 

 briefly mentioned in this chapter are inextricable with certainty. Even if 

 a sufficiently perfect knowledge of all the plants found in Amboina did 

 enable us correctly to guess what was intended by the second and third 

 forms of Ichthyoctonos, there is nothing in Rumphius's statements by 



