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XXXI. Botanical Description of the Benjamin Tree of Sumatra. 
By Jonas Dryander, M . A. Libr. R. S. and Member oj the 
Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm j communicated by Sir 
Jofeph Banks, Bart. P. R . S. 
Read May 17, 1787. 
HOUGH Garcias ab Horto, Grim, and Sylvius, 
-a. were acquainted with the real tree from which Benjamin 
or Benzoin is collected, their defcriptions of it are fo imperfect 
and infufficient for its botanical determination, that fucceeding 
botanifts have fallen into many errors concerning it ; and it is 
remarkable, that although this drug was always imported from 
the Eaft-Indies, mold of the later writers on the Materia 
Medica have conceived it to be collected from a fpecies of 
Laurus, native of Virginia, to which, from this erroneous 
fuppofition, they have given the trivial name of Benzoin. 
This miftake fee ms to have originated with Mr. Ray, who in 
his Hilloria Plantarum, Voh II p. 1845. at the end of his 
account of the Arbor Benivifera of Garcias, fays: 44 Ad nos 
44 lcripfit D. Tancredus Robinson Arborem rellniferam odo- 
44 ratam foliis eitrinis praedittae haud abfimilem tranfmilTam 
44 fuille e Virginia a D. Banister, ad illuftriflimum Prae- 
44 fultm D. Hlnr. Compton, in cujus inftru&iffimo horto 
44 culta eft. Arbor ifta Virginiana Citrii, vel Limonii foliis 
44 Benzoinum fundens, in horto reverendillimi Epifcopi culta.” 
Tins error was dete&ed by Linnaeus, but another was 
fublLtuted by hijn in its place; foi in his Mantilla Plantarum 
Altera,. 
