Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/20

4 the isle of Rhodes being its native country. We find nothing among them indicative of the above Liquidambar, or any similar tree. It is evident that Pococke had but a superficial knowledge of the historical, and still less of the botanical, part of the subject. The only point I have had in view, after the example of Dr. Sibthorp, was to ascertain Pococke's plant. Specimens preserved in the herbarium of my deceased friend, and a pencil sketch by Mr. Bauer, show this to be, without any doubt, what he determined it, the Liquidambar Styraciflua of Linnæus, and not, as Willdenow presumed, the imberbe of Aiton. This last was brought from the Levant, Duhamel says from Caria, by Peysonel to the Paris garden, from whence I have an authentic specimen. Miller obtained seeds, by which the L. imberbe was introduced into our gardens, and he describes it well. Nothing can be more distinct as a species; but it was not well ascertained when Dr. Sibthorp began his travels, which will account for his adverting to the American Liquidambar only.

There still remains great difficulty in accounting for the introduction of this tree into Cyprus, and for its becoming so famous there. The plant is not known to have been cultivated in England, much before the end of the seventeenth century, scarcely fifty years before Pococke found it, apparently long established in Cyprus. The Venetians were owners of this island from the year 1480 to 1570; so that if they, as Dr. Sibthorp guesses, introduced this tree, it must have been among the earlier botanical importations from the new-discovered continent. But we can find no traces of the Liquidambar tree having, any where, excited the particular attention of the Venetians, or any other Italians, either for medical, œconomical, or religious purposes; nor does it occur in their gardens, or even their botanical catalogues, as far as I can trace. Pococke's vague mention of the "isle of Rh