294} A COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND BOOK 
CAP. XXV. 
Arbor alba major, p. 72, t. 16. 
E Java, Borneo, et Malacca, p. 74. 
These seem to be two distinct species, as they grow na- 
turally in very different situations, and possess different 
qualities ; but, as usual, no notice is taken of this difference 
by Burman in his observation ; and it has become the cus- 
tom to consider this Arbor alba major as only of one kind, 
and as the only Cqju Piiti. This has occasioned numerous 
mistakes, as Rumphius has given figures of three kinds of 
Cqju Piiti, and this first kind, in all probability, includes 
two species. He considered them all as nearly allied to the 
genus Myrtus^ although he confined the name Myrtus 
Amboinensis to his third kind. 
Burman adopted the same idea, and the Arbor alba major 
Amboinensis he called Myrto-Leticode^idron Jhliis iniegris, 
lanceolato-inflexis, Jloribus standnosis^ et Jructibus urceo- 
latis ; but he annexes a description by Garcin, which should 
have satisfied any one that it was no Myrtus. 
Linnasus, however, in the first edition of the Species 
Plantarum, followed by the younger Burman (Fl. Ind. 
116), called it Myrtus Leucode7idra ; but in this he in- 
cluded, without distinguishing them even as varieties, not 
only the Arbor alba major Amboinensis and Javariica, but 
also the plants represented in Plate 17, where two very 
distinct kinds are figured. There is, however, great reason 
from his Materia Medica to think, that by his Myrttis 
Leucodendra he meant the plant which produces the Cajit 
Puti oil, and that therefore he ought not to have quoted 
the 16th plate ; for Rumphius gives not the slightest rea- 
son to suppose that the tree Avhich it represents gives any 
oil. 
