541 NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ON INDIAN PLANTS.
et patulis, subdivisionibus singulis bracteola subulata sub- tensis. — Brown.
��COMETES SURATTENSIS. BlU'lIl. Tab. 17.
Eolus cuneato-obovatis, ellipticisve ; ramulis leevibus ; stipulis petiolaribus ; fructus involucri ramulis fasciculatis, imis deflexis. — Brown MSS.
The genus Cometes, proposed by the younger Bur- mannus (in Flora Indica, p. 39), was adopted in Mantissa prima by Linnaeus, whose generic character agrees in most respects with the short description of Burmannus, from which it was no doubt chiefly formed : as, however, it differs in some points, he probably had seen and slightly examined the original specimen, which Burmannus may have taken with him to Upsal, as it is known he carried there for Linnseus's determination many of his rarer unpublished plants. But Linnaeus, in describing the fruit is] of Cometes to be a " capsula tricocca" must have pre- sumed on the affinity which he erroneously supposed the genus to have to Dalec/iampia.
Burmannus's specimen of Cometes swrattensis I have seen in his Herbarium, now in the possession of Baron Deles- sert. It corresponds tolerably with the figure in Flora Indica, which, notwithstanding some differences, was pro- bably made from it.
When engaged in drawing up the catalogue of Mr. Salt's Abyssinian plants, it occurred to me that the genus which I have in that catalogue named Saltia, was at least nearly related to Cometes ; but I had at that time no means of verifying my conjecture. I afterwards, however, re- quested M. Decandolle to examine the specimen in M. Delessert's Herbarium, and the result of that examination is given in a note attached to the specimen, written by M. Delessert in 1816, in which it is stated, on M. DecandohVs authority, to be a species of his genus Besmochceta, or Pupalia of Jussieu.
In September of the same year I examined the specimen, and left attached to it the following note, which refers to
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