FRANCIS HAMILTON'S COMMENTARIES WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO MELIACEAE

Summary The tangle of nomenclature surrounding Roxburgh's Flora indica is displayed and the date of publication of the first two volumes of the second edition is shown to be in January 1832. Many Roxburgh names were first validly published by others including Buchanan‐Hamilton. Hamilton's overlooked and misinterpreted binomials in Meliaceae and other families in his Commentaries on Rumpf and Rheede and in other papers are reconsidered. This necessitates name changes in Chisocheton (where a new subspecific combination is proposed) and Dysoxylum , both Meliaceae, and in Artocarpus, Garcinia (where a new combination is proposed) and Hygrophila. Later publication of Hamilton MS names by Dillwyn necessitates a new name in Canthium , while three of the ‘new’ names are antedated by overlooked ones in Dennstedt's interpretation of Rheede, necessitating new combinations in Parsonsia, Scleropyrum and Wrightia. Many names are shown to have been published earlier than is widely supposed, and completely overlooked, validly published binomials in Anacardium, Antidesma, Asclepias, Canthium, Elaeocarpus, Helicteres, Leucas, Pharnaceum, Polypodium and Pterocarpus are listed while Jones's mononomials are considered invalid. Three Hamilton names, two of them legitimately published in Caltha (= ? Delphinium spp.) are still of uncertain application. An interpretation of Dennstedt's other validly published names based on Rheede plates is appended, necessitating new combinations in Andrographis, Dalbergia, Ixora and Tetrastigma. Some six legitimate Dennstedt names, in Asclepias (= ? Tylophora sp.), Aspidium (= ? Dryopteris [ s.l. ] sp.), Forsythia (= Chionanthus sp.), Limonia (= ? Randia sp.), Pothos (= ? Embelia sp.) and Uvaria (= Polyalthia sp.) are still of uncertain application.