Gomphrena globosa

Folio 90 bears a flowering specimen that we identify as the common garden ornamental Gomphrena globosa L. ( Amaranthaceae). Hermann’s annotation mentions: ‘Amarantho adfinis Breyni. Cent. 1. Flos globularius Rumph.’(Fig. 3). Hermann did not report any local name of this plant either with the specimens or in his notes (Sherard 1717). Four specimens of G. globosa are preserved in BM, and one in the Paris collection (Lourteig 1966: 32), but none of them bears a reference to Rumphius. The species is not represented in the Erfurt collections (Rauschert 1970). Rumphius (1747: 289) described it as ‘flos globosus’ and ‘flos globularius’, with the local Malay-Dutch name ‘Bonga knop’, a garden ornamental introduced from Java, of which the flowers are strung into garlands during weddings and other festivities and the leaves are consumed as a vegetable. Rumphius also mentioned Breyne’s description of the species, as did Hermann. The small illustration of the plant in the published version of Herbarium Amboinense (1747: 289; Fig. 4) is a fragment of the much larger illustration that is stuck between p. 320 and p. 321 in the handwritten manuscript (BPL 314, 1692) in the Leiden University Library (Fig. 5).