378 
Prain.— The Mercurialineae and 
The considerations which influenced Royen when he made this plant 
the basis of the genus Acalypha have already been explained. Seeing that 
this is the plant to which alone the generic definition of Ricinokarpos 
formulated by Boerhaave applies, the action suggested by Royen and 
adopted by Linnaeus was perhaps unfortunate. Burmann (Thesaur. Zeyl.) 
showed a better appreciation of the case when he maintained Boerhaave’s 
name Ricinokarpos , and strove to establish effectively the genus that 
Boerhaave had in view. With this object Burmann added to Ricinokarpos 
seven 3-coccous species, all, as Burmann believed, members of Boerhaave’s 
genus. Unfortunately, as Kuntze has pointed out (Rev. Gen. PL, ii. 615), 
Ricinokarpos, Burm., instead of being precisely equivalent to the American 
portion of Ricinokarpos, Boerh., is a melange of three genera. The first of 
Burmann’s seven species, which is figured (Thesaur. Zeyl., t. 92), is a Tragia ; 
the sixth is the species treated by Endlicher in 1840 as the basis of 
Mercurialis § Trismegista (Gen. PL, mi), and made by Bentham in 1849 
the type of the genus Micrococca (Hook. Niger. FL, 503) ; the other five, of 
which the last is also figured (Thesaur. ZeyL, t. 93, Fig. 1), do belong to 
what Royen identified with the genus Ricinocarpos , Boerh., as represented 
by the Surinam plant collected by Hartog. Boerhaave so defined Ricino- 
karpos that we know which of the two species therein included is the type 
of his genus. Burmann provided no generic definition ; it cannot, therefore, 
be said with certainty which of the three genera that he included in Ricino- 
karpos best interprets his conception. It was on this account incumbent 
on Linnaeus to treat the first species, which Burmann had figured (Thesaur. 
Zeyl., t. 92), as the type of Ricinokarpos , Burm. But this plant is very 
different from Ricinokarpos , Boerh.. which is also the type of Acalypha , 
Roy. ; it is, in fact, a Tragia , so that the identification by Linnaeus (Coroll. 
Gen., 19) of Ricinokarpos, Burm., with Ricinokarpos , Boerh., is not in- 
telligible. 1 It is then remarkable to find an authority on matters of the 
kind so competent as Kuntze, after an accurate statement and a careful 
discussion of the facts, arriving at conclusions (Rev. Gen. PL, ii. 615) which 
these facts appear to controvert. Thus Kuntze has said that because 
Linnaeus supposed that Ricinokarpos, Burm., is identical with Ricinokarpos, 
Boerh., therefore Acalypha , Roy., being a homonym of Ricinokarpos , Boerh., 
must be reduced to Tragia, Linn., of which Ricinokarpos, Burm. non Boerh., 
is a homonym. Further, Kuntze has said that, because Burmann did apply 
the name Ricinokarpos to certain species which appear to be congeneric 
with Ricinokarpos, Boerh., it is, therefore, necessary to employ — Kuntze 
says * to reinstate ’ — the genus ‘ Ricinocarpos, Burm.’ 
As regards the former conclusions : Acalypha , Roy., is a part — the 
1 What is practically the converse of this curious confusion was caused by Thunberg in 1794 
(Prodr. PI. Cap. 14) when he published as Tragia capensis a species of Ctenomeria , Harv., and as 
T. villosa a species of Acalypha, Roy. 
