278 OBSERVATIONS ON PLANTS
greater decurrcnce of the lamina being on the outer or posterior margin of the footstalk. This Indian species, which may be named C. Boxhurgliii, is the Capparis trifohata of Dr. Roxburgh's manuscripts, but not Nilrvala of Hortus Malabaricus {vol. ^,p. 49, /. 42), as he considers it. I have httle doubt of its being also the plant described as C. Tapia, by Vahl {sijmh, 3, 7;. Gl), his specific character well according with it, and not applying, as far as relates to the petals, to any known species of America. Bat as this character is adopted by Sir James Smith [hi Rees's Cydojj), it may hkewise be C. Tapia of the Linnean her- barium ; a conjecture the more probable as Linnseus has distinguished his Tapia by its ovate petals from gynandra, in which they are said to be lanceolate (/§;. ;;/. ect 2, ;;. 037). This celebrated herbarium., hov^xver, is here of no authority, for Linnaeus was never in possession of sufficient materials to enable him to understand either the structure and limits of the genus Crateva, or the distinctions of its species ; and the specific name in question, under which he originally included all the species of the genus, ought surely to be applied to an American plant, at least, and if possible, to that of Piso, with whom it originated. It is hardly to be supposed that the plant intended by Piso can now with certainty be determined ; the only species from Brazil, however, with which I am acquainted, well accords with his figure and short description. This Brazilian species is readily distinguishable both from C. Adansonii and Rox- burghii, by the form of its petals, which, as in all the other 225] American species, are narrow-^ oblong or lanceolate ; and from C. gynandra by the shortness of its stipes genitalium, or torus.
Crateva Tapia, so constituted, is, on the authority of a fragment communicated by Professor Schrader, the Cleome arbor ca of that author {in Gcetf. Anzeicj, 1821, />. 707, Be Cand. Pro dr. \,p. 242) ; nor is there anything in the character of C. acnminaia of De Candolle {Frodr. 1, j). 243), which does not wtII apply to our plant.
C. Tapia, as given by M. De Candolle {ojj. cit), is cha- racterised chiefly on the authority of Plumicr's fignre, in
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