THE " CEDAR OF GOA." 



5 



assumed that Dr. Goeze's slab of wood belongs to C. sempervirens . 

 Whether C. lusitanica or glauca is a variety of sempervirens is 

 another matter which will be considered later on. 



Keverting to the recorded history of this tree, it is not 

 till nearly fifty years after its first mention at Bussaco by the 

 Portuguese poet before named that we find any further record 

 of the tree, and then, curiously enough, in our country. In 

 January 1680 we learn that Mr. John Watts was appointed to 

 superintend the garden belonging to the Society of Apothecaries 

 at Chelsea* In 1G82 the garden was visited by Dr. Hermann, 

 Professor of Botany at Leyden, who proposed an exchange of 

 plants, which proposal Mr. Watts went to Holland (1683) to 

 carry into effect. The result will be stated in a succeeding 

 paragraph. To keep as nearly as may be to a chronological 

 sequence, it is requisite here to mention that in the Banksian 

 Herbarium is preserved the herbarium of Sloane, to which I 

 have had access through the kindness of Mr. Carruthers and 

 the members of his staff, who, as also Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, 

 have rendered me much assistance in this research. In one of 

 the volumes in which Sloane 's plants are contained is an 

 inscription on the fly-leaf stating that the plants herein con- 

 tained were " gathered in the fields and gardens about London 

 in the year 1682, for my own [Sir Hans Sloane's] and Mr. 

 Courten's collections." Among these plants is a small scrap, 

 indeterminable as to the species, but which has the spreading 

 primordial leaves so characteristic of a certain stage of growth in 

 the species of Cupressus, Juniperus, and Thuya. This is called 

 " Cedrus ex Goa," and reference is made to Kay's History, 

 p. 1414, of which more anon. This specimen, then, dating from 

 1682, and subsequently identified by Bay, forms the earliest 

 authentic record, so far as this country is concerned ; but it is 

 not wholly a satisfactory one for reasons above stated. In 1684 

 it was mentioned in a letter from Sloane to Bay among plants 

 thought rare at Chelsea and Fulham. 



About the same time, though I am not able to fix the exact 

 date, the Duchess of Beaufort gave to Sir Hans Sloane two 

 specimens of the "Cedar of Goa," gathered at Badminton. 

 These two specimens are contained in the Duchess' herbarium, 



* Memoirs of the Botanic Garden at Chelsea. By the late Henry Field, 

 Esq. Continued to the present time by R. H. Seraple, M.D., &c. (1878). 



