250 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
The plant supposed to yield this famous drug was first botanically 
nkmeA-MenispermumCocculus byLinnseus; butCocew/iw as a genus 
was not established till 1818, when De Candolle first employed 
the name to comprehend a very heterogeneous series of plants, 
most of which had previously been included in Menispermum. 
The Menispermum Cocculus, Linn., ought therefore to have been 
the type of De Candolle’s genus ; but such was the want of 
knowledge and the uncertainty then prevailing in regard to the 
subject, that no one really knew to what plant the true Cocculus 
of commeree belonged. It had been referred by botanists to 
three several species : — (1) Cocculus lacunosus, DC., which I 
considered identical with his Cocculus suberosus-, (2) Cocculus 
Plukenetii, DC. (now a Pachygone), a species identified by De 
Candolle with the Menispermum Cocculus, Willd. (non Linn.) ; 
and (3) Cocculus suberosus, DC. (now an Anamirta). It is to 
the last that the drug in question really belongs ; it is identical 
with the Menispermum Cocculus, Linn., but not of Willdenow. 
When I published my notes on Menispermacem in 1851, I was 
conscious that, according to strict rule, the Cocculus suberosus 
ought to have been taken as the type of the genus Cocculus’, 
but in that case Anamirta, established by Colebrook in 1819, 
must have been suppressed, and a new genus formed from the 
plants I had retained in Cocculus. In the midst of the confu- 
sion that had so long prevailed, I considered it far better not to 
disturb Anamirta, but to choose another of the oldest species 
remaining in De Candolle’s genus for the type of Cocculus as 
now restricted : accordingly Cocculus Carolinus, DC. was selected 
for this purpose. Having cleared away from De Candolle’s he- 
terogeneous group the numerous species possessing a structure 
at variance with this type, Cocculus was thus for the first time 
reduced to precise limits in its floral as well as in its carpological 
organization. 
It was endeavoured, however, by botanists of the highest repu- 
tation, to set aside this precision with regard to Cocculus. The 
authors of the ‘ Flora Indica,’ led away by their too ardent de- 
sire for abrogating genera and species, disregarded the limits I 
had assigned to this genus, and refused to acknowledge Ne- 
phroica, Holopeira, and Diploclisia, on the plea that a difference 
in the form of the petals (though constant and very peculiar in 
each group) is of little importance in a generic point of view : 
heedless, too, of the carpological features which distinguish 
these genera, they fused together, after their peculiar method, 
all the genera of my Platygonece, reducing them to a few spe- 
cies of Cocculus, corresponding in number with my genera. It 
IS much to be regretted that the authors of the new ‘Genera 
Plantarum ’ should have adopted these extreme views in that 
