| 38 | Mr. Brown, on the Proteaceae of Jussieu. |
1735; no generic characters are there given, but from the references to Boerhaave's figures it is evident that the genus is to be understood in the same extensive sense which he at length gave it in the second Mantissa. In 1737 appeared the Genera Plantarum, and in it for the first time the natural generic character of Protea: as in this work he only cites Lepidocarpodendron and Hypophyllocarpodendron of Boerhaave, it follows that here the genus is more limited, though its character is not peculiarly applicable to either of Boerhaave's genera referred to; and the description of antheræ and germen is not reconcilable to any plant whatever of the family. In the same year Hortus Cliffortianus was published, in which he resumes his first opinion of Protea, reducing to it all Boerhaave's genera, but referring to the character given in his own Genera Plantarum. It does not appear on what ground this change of opinion was formed; for in Clifford's garden, according to Viridarium Cliffortianum, there had only been two species, Protea argentea and saligna, neither of which had flowered, and the former was already lost; while in his Herbarium, now in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks, the specimens of all the three species given in the body of the work are without fructification, and of Protea racemosa added in the appendix there is no specimen whatever.
If Linnæus is to be considered in a great degree the author of the Prodromus Floræ Leydensis, published by A. Van Royen in 1740, as has been asserted by some of his pupils, and may be inferred from a passage in his Diary published by Dr. Maton, it must be noticed as his next work in the order of time; for from the same Diary it appears that he could only have been employed in its composition in 1738. In this work the genus Protea is given in the same extensive sense as in Hortus Cliffortianus, and no fewer than 21 species are characterized, of which
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