50 
MEMOIR OF 
He then resumes his Natural History, which, 
with the index, occupies four hundred and ninety- 
nine pages, commencing with the trees of 
Jamaica. We shall exhibit an analysis of this 
volume. 
Chapter 1. Of trees which bear their flowers and fruit 
separated. 
2. Of trees bearing dry fruits which are not 
siliquose. 
3. Of trees that have papilionaceous flowers, 
and are siliquose. 
4. Of trees which bear berries, and are 
umbilicated or caliculated. 
perhaps less disposed to palliate their errors. As far as 
we have examined, his remarks, however severe, are not 
unjust.” Linnaeus’s opinion of him may be formed from the 
following observations to Haller: “ Who has ever been 
free from botanical errors ? He is a wise man who can 
distinguish good from evil ; and that general may be 
esteemed happy, who conquers and disperses his enemies 
with the loss of half his own forces. Who is more meri- 
torious in exotic plants, though not a systematist, than 
Plukenet ? but who was ever more unprincipled, more of 
a heretic in botany, or a greater scandal to our science, 
than either Plukenet or Vaillant ?” The full title of the 
work mentioned above, is “ Almagesti Botaniei Mantissa, 
Plantarum novissime deleetarum ultra Millenarium Nume- 
rum complectens,” 1700, 4to. 
The Herbarium of Plukenet consisted of eight thousand 
plants, an astonishing number to be collected by a private 
and not opulent individual. It came, after his death, into 
the hands of Sir Hans Sloane, and is now in the British 
Museum — Biographical Dictionary by Chalmers, article 
Plukenet. 
