OF THE HERBARIUM AMBOINENSE. 271 
iv. 384), male and female, in the proper sense understood 
by late botanists ; for both produce fruit : but the female 
is the most common variety, with round kernels; while 
those of the N. M. mas are oblong, a mere accidental cir- 
cumstance, arising from culture. Trees producing such 
nuts, as Rumphius observes, " raro occurrunt^ et semper 
solse ab aliis remotse arboribus, videturque haec species de- 
generata esse a vera Nuce moschata!^ The same seems evi- 
dently the case with the other kinds. " Praeter binas hasce 
species Nux aromatica alias quoque habet varietates, et 
abortus, quae autem non diversam constituunt speciem.'* 
In this sentence Rumphius uses the terms species and va- 
rieties in exactly the Linnean acceptation. 
The names given to this plant by various nations are 
carefully detailed by Rumphius (16, 17), and the syno- 
nyma of the older botanists are enumerated by Burman in 
his observation (18). The tree was not, however, intro- 
duced into the modern systems of botany, until the younger 
Linnaeus published an erroneous account of it, under the 
name of Myristica officinalis, by which he no doubt meant 
to describe the proper nutmeg tree ; but there is reason to 
suspect from Gaertner (De Sem. i. 194, t. 141, f. 1), that 
the Myristica officinalis of Linnaeus is in reality the next 
tree that Rumphius describes. M. Lamarck, therefore, 
properly calls the true Nutmeg Myristica aromatica (Enc. 
Meth. i. 385 ; 111. Gen. t. 833, f. 1), erring only in having 
quoted the M. officinalis among the synonyma, and per- 
haps in having borrowed some parts of Gaertner's figure of 
the fruit, — such as his g^f, and i, which seem to be the 
/, i and / of M. Lamarck, and do not belong to the M. aro^ 
matica. Although, therefore, M. Poiret (Enc. Meth. Sup, 
iv. 34) may justly blame Willdenow, or rather Thunberg 
and Houttuyn, for useless innovation, in changing the 
name officinalis or aromatica into moschata and fragrans^ 
