Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/266

 242 ARRUDA'S BRAZILIAN PLANTS. By James Britten, F.L.S. Having bad occasion to look up one of Arruda's names, I found that a considerable number of the species standing in Mr. Jackson's Index on his authority had never been correlated, and that in some cases even the systematic position of his genera was doubtfully or inaccurately indicated. It seemed to me worth while to identify as far as possible these obscure plants by an examination of the de- criptions, local names, and other indications given by Arruda, and by references to works in which they have been cited. Some identifications, overlooked by Mr. Jackson, may be found in Martins' Flora Brasiliensis, others are given by monographers ; and I have found considerable help in Mr. Miers's valuable MS. Botany. The plants described by Arruda have found their way into botanical literature through the Appendix to Henry Koster's Travels in Brazil (1816). This English traveller, who was of Portuguese descent, finds no place in the Dictionary of National Biography, but Larousse gives a short account of him. He was born at Liverpool in 1793. His. delicate health rendered a sojourn in warm climates necessary, and in November, 1809, he sailed for Brazil, in which country he remained until April, 1811. Having spent the summer in England, he went back to Brazil, where he settled down as a planter. Circumstances rendered it necessary for Koster to return home at the end of 1815. He then set to work to write an account of his travels', in which he had the help of Robert Southey, then Poet Laureate. His book is extremely interesting, and shows the author — who was only twenty-two when he wrote it — to have been a man of much promise. Koster visited much of the country then little known to Europeans ; and his notes on the region, the people, and their customs, are of considerable value. He learnt Portuguese, and soon became at home among the people. ''England is my country," he says at the close of his narrative, "but my native soil is Portugal : I belong to both, and whether in the company of Englishmen, of Portugueze, or of Brazilians, I feel equally among my countrymen." It is manifest from his book that the character ascribed to him in Larousse was well deserved : — ''Done d'un esprit judicieux et d'un caractere affable, il a considere les hommes et les choses sans prevention et sans aigreur." Koster went to Brazil a third time, but did not return : he died at Pernam- buco in 1820. The only information I have been able to find about Arruda is the following note by Koster {Travels, p. 49) : — '' On the 24th of October [1810], I delivered a letter of intro- duction which I obtained at Recife, to the Dr. Manuel Arruda da Camara. This interesting person lay at Goiana very ill of dropsy, brought on by residing in aguish districts. He was an enterprising man, and had always been an enthusiast in botany. His superior
 * Catalogue of the Woods of Brazil," now in the Department of