THE HERBAEIUM AMBOINENSE. 377 
Linnaeus was, I believe, the first to renew the idea of 
Pliny, in dividing these plants into two genera : but in do- 
ing so, while he continued the term Gossypium for the 
Gossipion of the Roman, he bestowed Xylon, another term 
for the same plant, to Pliny's Gossampinus. This was in 
the earliest part of his course, when he published the Hor- 
tus Cliifortianus and Flora Zeylanica. Soon after he seems 
to have become sensible that the term Xylon was ill-applied 
to the Gossampinus of Pliny, and he therefore abandoned 
it in the first edition of the Species Plantarum ; but, in 
place of restoring the name of Pliny, or adopting Eriopho- 
ros used by Rumphius, or Ceiba applied by Plumier to 
plants of the same genus, he used the word Bdmbax, of 
which I do not know the origin. It has, however, been 
adopted by all modern botanists, except Gsertner, who 
might perhaps have been justified in resuming the Gossam- 
pinus of Pliny ; but the Bombax of Linnaeus is surely as 
good as the Ceiba of Plumier. Perhaps the Bombax of 
Linnaeus should be left to one of the species earliest de- 
scribed by him, the Bombax gossypinum or conga^ which 
is quite different from the others, does not belong to the 
same natural order, but rather to the Tiliaceae, and is not 
an Arbor lanigera. In this case, the classical name Gos- 
sampinus should be restored to the other species of Bom- 
bax, the authority of Gaertner being scarcely sufiicient to 
introduce Ceiba. 
Rumphius, and the elder Burman in his annexed obser- 
vation, seem to have considered the Eriophoros Jamwzc^x 
as being the same with the Pania or Paniala and Moul 
Elavou of the Hortus Malabaricus (iii. 59, t. 49, 50, 51, 
et 61, t. 52) ; but this is evidently a mistake, as the sta- 
mina of the Moul Elavou distinguish it clearly from the 
Eriophoros Javanica. The Pania was quoted by Plukenet 
(Aim. 172) as his " Gossipiym seu Xylon arbor Orientale 
