Note on the Species of Croton Described by Linnus Under The

26 MR. BENNETT ON TlIE SPECIES OF CllOTON quietly in a few places, penetrating twice about 3 miles inland. On this, the N.E. side of the lake, beyond the belt of swamp bordering it, the soil is fiue rich loam, well-watered, and capable of growing any tropical produce. Some cleared ground occurs here and there ; but very little of it is now under cultivation; for the growth of cotton it is well adapted. If the attention of the present occupiers could be turned to this article, several hundred square miles contiguous to water might produce cotton, which could be carried to Lagos by canoes merely across the lake. A consider- able quantity of cotton is now coming down from Abeokuta (distant 70 miles from Lagos by river) ; the price paid there for cotton in the seed is one halfpenny per lb., three of which yield one pound pure when cleaned. Labour of cleaning, transit to Lagos, with shipment, raise it to 3d. per lb. ; one penny more, freight to Liver- pool, leaves still a profit ; but a much larger supply is necessary before the leading merchants here will enter into the trade with the sa~neadvantage that now attends their dealings in palm oil. Too much must not be expected of Central Africa as a cotton- producing country ; the plant needs niore moisture than it would obtain in much of the land in the interior, and water-carriage should never be far distant in a country where all loads are con- veyed by canoe or on the heads of nien and women. There is plenty of available land near the sea and by rivers ; the great valley of the Niger would alone yield an enormous supply: it is here cotton must be looked for, and its growth encouraged ; the great plains of the interior are almost as useless in this respect as Sahara itself. 1 remain, Sir, your most obedient Servant, CHARLES BARTER, Note on the species of Groton described by Linnaeus nuder the naines of Clutia Eluteieia and Clictia Cmcnrilla. By JORN J. BENNETT,Esq., F.R.S., See. L.S. [Read April Hst, 1859.1 DURINQa late residence in the Baliama Islands,the attention of our indefatigable member, Dr. W. F. Daniell, was especially directed to the species of C,*otongro~ ing iu thofle islands ; and 1 am enabled, by his kind communication of the speci~nenscollected bj him, to DESCRIBED BY LINNZUS AS CL. ELUTERIA AND CL. CASCARILLA. 27 clear up much of the obscurity in which the species furmiehing the Cascarilla-byks of commerce have been involved. I willingly leave in his own able hands that portion of the subject which relates to the Materia Medica and the commercial history of the Barks in question, and shall limit myself, in the present brief notice, to the botanical history and discrimination of the species which have been confounded together under the specific names of Ehteria and Cascarilla. The first account given by Linnaeus of C. Eluteria occurs in ‘ Hortus Cliffortianus ’ (1737),pp.486-7. Of the plant there carefully described, an authentic specimen exists in Cliffort’s Herbarium in the British Museum, with a portion of the description attached in Linnaeus’s own hand, and marked with the only synonym quoted :-“ Cortex Ifatheria. Elutheria Provid. folio cordato subtus axgenteo. Sweet bark, 8. cortex bene olens. Petiv. Collect. p. 4 11.276.” The synonym; the habitat,“ crescit in Insula Providentia ;” and the name Elzctheria, derived from the adjacent island of Eleuthers, all bespeak its Bahamian origin. Of this very distinct species, a specimen brought from the Bahamas forms part of Catesby’s collections in the British Museum ; and there also exist, in the Banksian Herbarium, a similar specimen of Catesby’s from Gronovius, together with specimens from the Herbarium of Philip Miller, from the “ Bahama Islands, Long Island,” collected by Peter Dean, Esq., in 1788 ; and from the “ southern parts of North America,” collected by And& Michaux, the latter sent under the erroneous name of Croton Cascarilla. Linnaeus himself never possessed a specimen; and having, apparently, entirely forgotten its characters, he referred to it in his ‘ Flora Zeylanica’ (1748), No. 366 (with several other equally erroneous synonyms), the Xk- hapatigaha’ of Hermann’s ‘ Museum Zeylanicum,’ of which no specimen existed in Hermann’s collections, and added the officinal synonym of Cascarilla. Of the additional sinonyms, that quoted from Breynius, Plukenet, and Seba, unquestionably belongs to the plant subsequently named by Jacquin Croton nivewm ; and that of Plumier and Catesby, as we shall hereafter see, is the foundation of Linnseus’s own Clutia Cascarilla. In his ‘ Materia Media,’ published in the following year, he ascribes the CascariUa Bark to the Eluteria of his ‘ Flora Zeylanica,’ with the single synonym of Catesby; while in the first edition of ‘Species Phtarum,’ published in 1753, he quotes, under Clutia Elutek, his ‘Flora Zeylanica ’ and ‘ Materia Medica,’ Elzcteria of ‘ Hortus Clifforti- anus,’ and the mistaken synonym of Plukenet and Ekba. Of all 28 YR. BENNETT ON THE SPECIES OF CROTON these, it is evident that the only true synonym is that of ‘ Hortus Cliffortianus,’ from which the name of the specie@was derived. Up to this time Linnaeus had in his own herbarium no specimen referred to Clutiu Eluteria ; and there is no indication by which it can be positively determined whence and at what period the specimen which he subsequently designated by that name was obtained. It appears probable, however, that it waa one of the Jamaica specimens received by him from Patrick Browne, and described in his ‘ Pugdlus Plantarum Jamaicensium ’ (1759), inserted in the fifth volume of his ‘ AmcenitatesAcademim.’ The description which he there gives (p. 411) of Clutia Elateria is quite inapplicable to the original plant, and exactly agrees with this specimen. In the second edition of ‘ Species Plantarum,’ he refew to this description, adds Patrick Browne’s synonym, and retains that of ‘Hortus ClifFortianus,’ as well aa the erroneous reference to Plukenet and Seba. It i8 only necessary to add, that in Swartz’s ‘ Flora India Occidentalis ’ (p. 11831, Patrick Browne’s plant is properly referred to the genus Oroton, and is carefully described, under the name of Croton Eluteria, as synonymous with Clatia Eluteria, L., and that a figure of the true or Bahamian species, taken from one of Mr. Dean’s specimens in the Banksian Herbarium, is given in Woodville’s ‘ Medical Botany,’ t. 223, together with a sketch of a miserable scrap of the Jamaica plant from a speciriien communicated to the same Herbarium by Dr. Wright, who, in the eighth volume of the ‘Medical Journal,’ de- scribes it as producing “the Cascarilla or Elutheria of the shops.” I now turn to the second species, Clutia Cascm‘lla, L. Linnseus had originally no knowledge of this species, except that which he derived from the figure of Catesby and the synonym of ‘‘ Ricirzoides elzeagni folio,” quoted by Catesby from Plumier; and both of these he referred, in his ‘ Flora Zeylanica,’ to the confused heap there collected under the head of Eluteriafoliis cwdato-laneeolatis. The same confusion between the Bahamian and the Ceylonese species was continued in his ‘ Materia Medica ’; but in the ht edition of ‘ Species Plantarum ’ he distinguished .the plant figured by Catesby under the name of Clutia Cascal-illa,-mistaking, however, the habitat, which Catesby indicates as the Bahamas, and substituting Carolina in its stead. Ag he denotes by his usual symbol (t)that he had never seen this species, and quotes no other synonym than that of Catesby, there can be no question that the species is wholly founded on the figure and description of that DESCRIBED BY LINNEUS AS CL. ELUTERIA AND CL. CABCARILLA. 29 author, both of which are remarkably good representations of a plant of which Dr. Daniell has brought home excellent specimem, and which (as far’as I am aware) has never before been forwarded to European herbaria. Catesby’s description is as follows:-‘‘ The Ilabhera Bark ; La Chchrille. These shrubs grow plentifully on most of the Bahama Islands, seldom above ten feet high, and rarely so big as a man’s leg, though it is probable that, before these islands were exhausted of so much of it, that it grew to a larger size : the leaves are long, narrow, and sharp-pointed, and of a very pale light-green colour ; at the ends of the smaller branches grow spikes of small hexapetdous white flowers, with yellow apices, which are succeeded by tricapsular pale-green berries, of the size of peas, each berry containing three small black seeds, one in every capsule. The bark of this tree being burnt, yields a 6ne perfume ; mid, infused in either wine or water, gives a fine aromatic bitter.” As in the former case, it was not until after the publication of the species in the htedition of his ‘Species Plantarum,’ that Linnaeus became possessed of a specimen totally different from the original plant, but which he nevertheless referred to it. The same concurrence of circumstances as in the former case leads me to believe that this also was received from Dr. Patrick Browne. It perfectly agrees with the description of Clutia Cascarilla given in the same Dissertation in the ‘ Amoenitates Academicae,’ pol. v. p. 411, with the synonym of Browne, and with the figure of Sloane’s ‘ History of Jamaica,’ there quoted, and is the “ Wild Rosemary” of most of the West Indian Islands, subsequently described by Jacquin under the name of Crotm haewe-a name, which has since beeu generally, but erroneously, considered as synonymous with the Clutia Camarilla of Linnaeus.

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