INTRODUCTION 



35 



of the K. Svenskt Vetenskapsakademien, Stockholm, and one in 

 the private library of Doctor Greshoff, late director of the 

 Colonial Museum at Haarlem, Holland ; they consider it remark- 

 able that the work is lacking in such libraries as those of Leiden, 

 Upsala, Halle, and Munich. There are copies in the libraries of 

 the British Museum ; the Linnean Society, London ; and the Royal 

 Botanic Garden, Kew, England ; and I have been supplied with a 

 photostat copy of it by Dr. Walter T. Swingle, of the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. The 

 second edition differs from the original chiefly in the additional 

 reductions included. A total of about 458 binomials appear in 

 this work, nearly 150 more than in the first edition. The reduc- 

 tions included are chiefly those indicated in the second and the 

 third editions of Linnaeus's Species Plantarum and in the 

 younger Burman's Flora Indica, the latter having been published 

 in 1768. Two new binomials appear, Achyranthes spiciflora 

 Burm. and Verbesina aquatica Burm., the former, from the 

 reference given, manifestly a misprint for Acalypha spiciflora 

 Burm. f. ; while of the four published in the first edition in 1755 

 Aurantium maximum Burm. is eliminated in favor of Citrus 

 decumana Linn. 



BUCHANAN-HAMILTON 



Doctor Francis Buchanan-Hamilton commenced a critical con- 

 sideration of the Rumphian species, which, however, was never 

 completed or, at least, except for the first two parts, never 

 published. The first part is entitled A Commentary on the 

 Herbarium Amboinense, Liber Primus; and the second part, 

 A Commentary on the Second Book of the Herbarium Am- 

 boinense.* The work is of considerable interest and value. 

 Each species described by Rumphius is discussed to a greater 

 or less length with critical notes on the identity of the individual 

 species and with reasons for and against the various proposed 

 reductions. Hamilton was handicapped by lack of knowledge 

 of the Malayan flora and attempted to interpret the Rumphian 

 species largely from his experience with the Indian flora. The 

 various forms actually described from Indian material are usually 

 specifically distinct from the Rumphian species under which they 

 were placed; but Hamilton usually does not claim that the 

 Rumphian species is identical with the one he describes; he 

 merely says that the two resemble each other or are manifestly 

 allied. In a few cases, in the first part of his work, he proposed 

 binomials typified by the Rumphian species, but none of these 



*Mem. Wern. Soc. Edinburgh 5 (1826) 307-383; 6 (1832) 286-333. 



