If it proves so, this will by no means agree with the characters of Rhus; especially if the male flowers should grow upon different plants from the fruit, which is what I suspect. Nor can I agree with Dr. Linnæus in this particular of joining all the species of Toxicodendron to the genus of Rhus, many of which have their male flowers growing upon different plants from the fruit; and therefore would more properly come into his twenty-second class of _Dioecia_, than his fifth of _Pentandria_, into which he ranges the Rhus. At the bottom of the characters of that genus he has added a note, to shew the varnish-tree is so. But as there are several other species which agree in this essential character of distinction; so, according to the Linnæan system, they should be separated from the Rhus, with another generical title. Mr. Ellis observes, upon the poetical description, which he lays Kœmpfer has given of the leaves of the wild varnish-tree turning red in the autumn, that he had not found it to be the case of the tree growing in the stove at Busbridge. How it appeared in that situation, I know not; but the leaves of all those, which are growing in the Chelsea garden, and stand in the open air, do constantly change to a purple colour in the autumn, before they fall off from the shrub: but those of the true varnish-tree are much more remarkable for the deepness of their colour. Mr. Ellis says, he had received a letter from Dr. Sibthorp, professor of botany at Oxford, in which the Doctor informs him, that there is no specimen of the true varnish-tree in the Sherardian collection at Oxford; but that there is one of _fasi-no-ki_, or spurious varnish-tree of Kœmpfer. How the Doctor could write so, I cannot conceive; for I am very sure there was no specimen of the latter in that collection while it remained in London, having myself often viewed that part of it: and sure I am, Dr. Dillenius never added that synonym to the former: and I do believe the latter was no other way known in Europe, than by Kœmpfer’s figure and description of it, excepting that specimen of Kœmpfer’s now in the British Museum.