21S 
ON THE LAURUS CASSIA. 
It is well known to modern botanists, that many of their 
earlier predecessors were but indifferent describers of plants, 
and often very loose in their quotations of figures as syno- 
n}^ms, a sin of which Linnseus was often about as guilty as 
any of his contemporaries. He seemed to have had an idea, 
that their figures were generally at best but approximations 
to the truth, and that if a figure exhibited even a remote simi- 
larity to a plant before him, especially if from the same coun- 
try, he might with safety quote it as a synonym. Bearing this 
in mind, we can easily account for a number of errors to 
which his incorrect synonyms have given rise. The present 
instance affords an excellent example of what I have here 
stated, and one which, but for the discovery of Mr. Marshall 
might have long remained undetected. 
In Herman's herbarium of Ceylon plants, he (Linnaeus) 
found one bearing the native names of " Dawalkurundu, Ni- 
kadawala," under which it is referred to, or described in Her- 
man's" Musseum Zeylanicum." This he considered a species 
of Laurus, apparently from habit alone, and in his usual brief 
precise style, calls it, " Laurus foliis lanceolatis trinerviis, 
nervis supra basin "unitis;" having previously called the true 
cinnamon, " Laurus foliis ovato-oblongis trinerviis basi nervos 
unientibus." The difference between the two, as indicated by 
the names, seems very slight, merely depending on the one 
having lanceolate leaves with the nerves united above the 
base ; while in the other the leaves are said to be ovate-oblong 
with the nerves distinct to the base — differences small indeed, 
and such as could never be found of much avail in distinguish- 
ing the one plant from the other, since they are both constantly 
met with in different leaves on the same tree. Such being 
the case, it is not much to be wondered at that botanists should 
have been surprised by the boldness of Mr. Marshall's an- 
nouncement, that two trees, believed to be of the same genus, 
and so nearly alike in their external forms, should yet differ 
so very widely in their properties. But so it is, and nothing 
can be more certain, than that the fact is as he states it. 
In proceeding to trace the history of the two species, aided 
