P rain.— The Merciirialineae and 
380 
M, annua in herb. Thunberg, which Muller has examined, and which, 
through the kindness of Professor Juel, the writer has also seen, shows that 
Muller’s identification needs to be qualified. There are on Thunberg’s 
sheet of M. annua two specimens ; though he has written up both as 
M. annua , they belong to two species. One of the two has also been 
written up, correctly, by Muller as M. annua ; the other, which Muller has 
written up as Leidesia Sprengeliana , is Mercurialis procumbens , Linn., and 
is what Muller later described as L. capensis. The reduction of M. annua , 
Thunb., to L. capensis , Mull, arg., involves the assumption that, of the two 
plants on his sheet, Thunberg had the Leidesia more particularly in view. 
This assumption, however, is not justifiable. Besides mixing two species on 
the sheet, Thunberg at one time had become confused with regard to their 
provenance ; the sheet, on the reverse, is endorsed, by Thunberg himself, 
‘e Japonia Thunberg’. This proves that when he wrote this legend 
Thunberg knew that the specimens had been gathered during his travels. 
Neither species grows in Japan ; Thunberg realized this in time, for he did 
not include M. annua in his ‘ Flora Japonica ’. The Leidesia specimen could 
only have been gathered in South Africa ; there is no reason for supposing 
that its companion was gathered anywhere else. Muller, in 1866, had the 
less justification for ignoring the genuine M. annua specimen in herb. 
Thunberg, because in 1862 Baillon (Adansonia, iii. 158) had recorded the 
presence in herb. Jussieu of a Cape specimen of M. annua named 
Urtica capensis 1 by Lehmann in 1832. There is, however, a stronger 
reason for believing that by M. annua Thunberg really intended the Linnean 
plant, and that the admixture of Leidesia capensis , Mull, arg., was fortuitous. 
We find in South Africa a second Leidesia, so closely allied to L. capensis 
that it only differs in having smaller capsules and seeds, rather fewer 
stamens, and rather fewer teeth on the leaf-margin. Yet this species, first 
described by Thunberg (FI. Cap. ed. Schult., 546) in 1823, was published, 
not as a Mercurialis , but as an Acalypha , A. obtusa , Thunb. 2 The doubt 
1 Baillon ( 1 . c.) states that this specimen is a * Un. it.’ one ; that is, a specimen of the ‘ Wiirttemb. 
Reise-Verein’ also known as the ‘Naturhist. Reise-Verein zuEsslingen’ or the ‘ Esslinger Reise- 
Verein’. This ‘ Verein ’ was founded by Steudel and Hochstetter in 1826 (Flora, ix. 1, 87). In 
1832 it advertised (Flora, xv. 2, 406) : ‘ Cap-Pflanzen gesammelt von Ecklon und herausgegeben v. d. 
Wiirttembergischen Reiseverein, gekauft 1829. 692 sp.’ In 1829 (Flora, xii. 1, 113) we find it 
announced that the ‘ Reiseverein * had just received a collection containing some three hundred species 
made by Ecklon of Cape Town. Lehmann’s Urtica capensis is no doubt one of the species alluded 
to in that notice. 
2 The specimen of this plant, written up by Thunberg himself as Acalypha obtusa , is the basis 
of Leidesia obtusa , Mull. arg. (DC. Prodr., xv. 2, 793). According to Steudel in 1841 (Nomencl., 
ed. 2, i. 10), the name used by Sprengel when he took up this plant was the variant A. obtusata. 
No doubt, in intention, A. obtusata , Spreng., and A. obtusa, Thunb., are identical. But, in practice, 
Sprengel caused his name to cover not only Leidesia obtusa , Mull. arg. (= Acalypha obtusa, Thunb.), 
with 2-coccous capsules, but also a species with 3-coccous capsules treated by Muller as the 
basis of a distinct genus Paradenocline ( 1 . c. 1141) which was in 1880 merged by Bentham in 
Adenocline , Turcz. To this genus Adenocline belongs another species described by Thunberg (FI. 
Cap,, ed. Schult., 546) as Acalypha acuta, though in his herbarium he has written up some of the 
