308 
COMMENTARY ON 
of the " Hortus Malabaricus and I must remark, that 
Rumphius is as free as Rheede from the error of suppos- 
ing that Catechu (JcatJi) is made from this palm ; and from 
this error the authors of the Encyclopedie (i. 240) are also 
exempt. Rumphius mentions four principal varieties, and 
several others of less note ; but none of these seem to be 
what botanists call distinct species. 
Caput VII. 
Pinangae sylvestres, p. 39. 
The authors of the Encyclopedie first introduced these 
into the system of modern botany, and were followed by 
Willdenow ; but I suspect that both followed Rumphius 
entirely, without having seen the plants ; and that Will- 
denow, in forming the specific characters from the stipites, 
has not always understood the meaning of his author. I 
shall now enter into particulars, the different kinds enu- 
merated by Rumphius being not mere varieties of cultivat- 
ed plants, but distinct species. 
Pinanga sylvestris globosa, p. 38, t. 5, f. 1, A. 
This the authors of the Encyclopedie (i. 241 ) call Areca 
sp'icata, a name adopted also by Willdenow (Sp. PI. iv, 
595) ; but Gaertner (De Semin. i. 24, t. 9, f 3) considers 
it as of a different genus, and calls it Euterpe globosa. I 
doubt much of the propriety of founding new genera of 
Palms merely from differences in the situation of the em- 
bryo, and suspect that the practice will lead to an arrange- 
ment altogether unnatural. Few palms are more different 
than the Coryphas and Pinangae sylvestres^ that have been 
united to form the genus Euterpe (Enc. Meth. Sup. ii. 
623). 
