A SHORT DISSERTATION. 
ject; nor would it be any way relevant to the subject, to know how 
many were enumerated by Petiver, Plukenet, Hermann, Olden- 
land, Ray, &c. &c. as, before Linnaeus had by his mode of classi¬ 
fication determined the precise limits of the Genus, the confusion 
that then pervaded all the elder botanists is such, that any com¬ 
ment from them would rather perplex than elucidate. Therefore, 
beginning with the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus, vol. ii. of 1767, 
including the European species, he there enumerates but 42; and 
Dahlgren, in 1770, edited a dissertation (under his inspection) on 
the Genus, containing a catalogue of 58 names from Bergius, the 
Mantissa, &c. Thunberg, on his return from Africa, added 13 to 
the number, all of wdiich were inserted in the Supplementum Plan¬ 
tarum of 1781. From this and some other sources Murray has in 
his Syst. Veg, of 1784 made a list of 74 names, and Martyn in 
his edition of Miller’s Dictionary, 1795, enumerates but 84. 
Willdenow^, collating from all the foregoing, &c., has mounted the 
list to 137 in his Species Plantarum. This is certainly far short of 
the number at present cultivated in Britain ; and from the variety 
of beautiful new specimens and seeds lately received by G. Hib- 
bert. Esq. from his collector at the Cape, many of which have 
vegetated and are in high perfection at the Clapham Gardens, we 
may fairly conjecture that the Genus is by no means bounded by 
the species we at present possess. 
