A denoclineae of South Africa . 377 
because, as Richter showed in 1840 (Cod. Linn., 952), M. androgyna of 1737 
and the suppressed M. procumbens of 1 753 must be identical. 
The evidence available shows that M. androgyna, Linn. (Virid. Cliff., 
98) of 1 737, M. procumbens, Linn. (Sp. PL, ed. 1, 1036) of 1753, an ^ Croton 
Ricinocarpos , Linn. (Sp. PL, ed. 2, 1427, quoad diagn. tantum) of 1763 are 
identical. It shows that the two last are based on the same specimen, and 
it suggests that this specimen, which, alone among those he could then 
have owned, supplied the evidence in support of the note of Linnaeus under 
756 Mercurialis in 1737, may also be a co-type of the species named 
M. androgyna in the same year. 
Muller, whose conclusions have been generally accepted, in 1866 decided 
that all three are different. According to him M. androgyna, Linn., is 
Croton Ricinocarpos, Linn., so far as Boerhaave’s American Ricinokarpos 
and the locality Surinam are concerned, whereas Croton Ricinocarpos, Linn., 
as to the plant described, but excluding Boerhaave’s American synonym 
and the locality Surinam, is identical with Leidesia capensis, Mull. arg. 
(DC. Prodr., xv. 2, 763), also ( 1 . c., 699) named L. Sonderiana . These con- 
clusions seem incompatible. In identifying Croton Ricinocarpos with 
Leidesia capensis, Muller has excluded Boerhaave’s American synonym and 
the Surinam plant, thus leaving Mercurialis androgyna as part of his species 
( 1 . c., 793) ; further on ( 1 . c., 798) Muller has cited M. androgyna, Linn., as 
being Boerhaave’s Surinam plant. Whereas Linnaeus had included under 
Croton Ricinocarpos, Linn., both his own M. androgyna and Boerhaave’s 
Surinam Ricinokarpos, Muller excluded first the one and then the other, 
thereby implying, no doubt unintentionally, that the African species to 
which the description of Croton Ricinocarpos applies is a tertium quid. 
Muller’s reference to the specimen in the Linnean herbarium must not be 
interpreted as implying that the name quoted was written up by Linnaeus : 
in citing Smith’s identification of the plant as the basis of Croton Ricino- 
carpos, Muller has not mentioned Smith’s simultaneous identification of the 
same specimen as Mercurialis procumbens. On the contrary, instead of 
agreeing with Smith that, because they are based on the same specimen, 
Mercurialis procumbens and Croton Ricinocarpos must be identical, Muller 
has cited the two names under two distinct genera. 
This then completes the story of the 2-coccous African plant in- 
cluded by Boerhaave in 3720 in his 3-coccous genus Ricinokarpos, which 
in 1866 became the basis of Muller’s distinct and valid genus Leidesia, 
Mull. arg. The history of the 3-coccous American plant on which, from 
his description, we learn that Boerhaave meant to base Ricinokarpos , and 
on which we know that Royen in 1737 based the genus Acalypha, has yet 
to be written; no one has identified any particular Surinam plant as being 
that named by Boerhaave ‘ Ricinokarpos americana ; flore albo spicato 
folio circaeae acutiori 
