lished genera. One of these is Erythrophleum of Afzelius, the Red Water Tree of Sierra Leone; another species of which genus is the ordeal plant, or Cassa of the natives of Congo. Guilandina Bonduc and Cassia occidentalis are also in the herbarium; the former, I beheve, is unquestionably common to India and America; whether Cassia occidentalis be really a native of India and equinoctial Africa, in both of which it is now at least naturalized, is perhaps doubtful.
Among PAPILIONACEÆ, which constitute the principal part of Leguminosæ in the collection, there is only one plant with stamina entirely distinct. This decandrous plant forms a genus very different from any yet established, but to which Podalyria bracteata of Roxburgh[1] belongs.
The genera composing Papilionaceæ on the banks of the Congo have, upon the whole, a much nearer relation to those of India than of equinoctial America. To this, however, there is one remarkable exception. For of the only two species of Pterocarpus in the collection, one is hardly to be distinguished from P. Ecastaphyllum, unless by the want of the short acumen existing in the plant of Jamaica. The second agrees entirely with Linnaeus's original specimen of P. lunatus from Surinam, and seems to be not uncommon on the west coast of equinoctial Africa; having been observed by Professor Afzelius at Sierra Leone, and probably by Isert in Guinea;[2] while no species of Pterocarpus related to either of these has hitherto been observed in India. On the other hand Abrus precatorius and Hedysarum triflorum, both of which occur in the collection, are common to equinoctial Asia and America.
TEREBINTACEÆ, as given by M. de Jussieu, appears to be made up of several orders nearly related to each other, and of certain genera having but little affinity to any of them. Of this, indeed, the illustrous author of the Genera Plantarum seems to have been aware, He pro- [431
