ALBERT

Description: CONTENTS\nI. Introduction............. 3\nII. Historical notes, including the successive views concerning the specific value of the growth forms.......... 6\nIII. The species of the genus Millepora........ 18\nIV. Synonymy and geographical distribution....... 23\nV. Discussion of the various characters for specific distinction .................................................... 44\nVI. Notes on specimens of Millepora from the islands Edam and Noordwachter in the Java Sea........... 71\nVII. Notes on specimens of Millepora in the Paris Museum ............................................................... 79\nVIII. Notes on specimens of Millepora in the Leiden Museum ............................................................. 86\nIX. Notes on specimens of Millepora in the Amsterdam Museum .................................................. 100\nLiterature............... 108\nI.\nINTRODUCTION\nAs a result of his studies on the growth forms of Millepora Hickson (1898 a, b, 1899) came to the conclusion that these various forms entirely are caused by different environmental factors, and that they are nothing else but manifestations of the extreme variability of the one species Millepora alcicornis L. Previously Hickson (1889) had seen more or less extreme growth forms on the reefs of North Celebes, and at that time he distinguished a more or less delicately branched growth form named by him Millepora alcicornis from a plate-like growth form named by him Millepora plicata. Now these growth forms are so strongly different that it seems a matter of fact that they are specifically distinct. Later, however, Hickson made an extensive study of material from expeditions and of

Description: Mr C.T. White is to be congratulated on being presented with, the Mueller Memorial Medal awarded by the Adelaide Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Aug. 1946. This award is in recognition of his work on the systematic botany of Queensland.\nDr Ir J.Ph. Pfeiffer, Director of Research, B.P.M.-lab., Amsterdam, died Nov. 18, 1947, at Amsterdam, 58 years old. He was formerly wood-technologist, and collected plants in Simaloer Island, NW Sumatra.

Description: Dr H.C.D. de Wit started a revision of Malaysian Bauhinia, this being part of his work on the Caesalpiniaceae of Malaysia; he is working in the Eijksherbarium, Leyden, Holland.\nMr R.A. Blakelock, is revising the genus Evonymus at the Roy. Bot. Gardens, Kew-Surrey.

Description: Though the list of nomina generica conservanda must be kept as small as possible, both the spirit of the rules and wish of all taxonomists is to aim at stabilizing nomenclature. In general the number of new combinations necessary through the digging up of an old name or the discovery of the identity of a mis-identified plant will be decisive.\nIf the number of new combinations towards the one or the other side are nearly equal, the generic name which has been in current use will generally be favoured. If no new combinations are necessary, the current use only will be regarded as the reasonable decision.

Description: There are only a few things left in common to the displaced and disjointed inhabitants of this Earth; they are the things spiritual.\nAmong those treasures of the mind natural science has come to the fore only in the last three centuries, as a lofty and impartial principle that tends to join people instead of disrupting them. Through war, famine and pestilence the undying fire of science has remained a steady beacon.

Description: Shrubs, trees, or prostrate plants. Leaves spread, rarely opposite, entire or toothed, exstipulate. Flowers \xe2\x99\x80, zygomorphic, rarely almost actinomorphic, small, axillary, solitary or usually in clusters of 2,3 or more. Calyx and corolla 5-lobed. Stamens 4, rarely 5, in pairs of unequal length, inserted on the corolla-tube and alternate with the lobes. Anther-cells opening lengthwise, confluent at the apex, usually forming a single reniform cell after dehiscence. Ovary superior, not lobed, 2\xe2\x80\x9410-celled with 1 ovule in each cell, rarely 2-celled with 2 ovules per cell. Style simple entire or obscurely notched at the apex. Drupe 2\xe2\x80\x9410-celled.\nDistr. Ca 35 spp., largely in Australia, 1 species in E. Asia, further in the Pacific, Rodriguez Isl. and Mauritius.

Description: Annual or perennial herbs, never woody shrubs (in Malaysia). Stems often furrowed and with soft pith. Leaves alternate along the stems, often also in rosettes; petiole usually with a sheath, sometimes with stipules at the base; lamina usually much divided, sometimes entire. Flowers polygamous, in simple or compound umbels, sometimes in heads, terminal or leaf-opposed, beneath with or without involucres and involucels. Calyx teeth 5, often obsolete. Petals 5, alternate with the calyx teeth, equal or outer ones of the inflorescence enlarged, entire or more or less divided, often with inflexed tips, inserted below the epigynous disk. Stamens alternate with the petals, similarly inserted. Disk 2-lobed, free from the styles or confluent with their thickened base, forming a stylopodium. Ovary inferior; styles 2. Fruits with 2 one-seeded mericarps, connected by a narrow or broad junction (commissure) in fruit separating, leaving sometimes a persistent axis ( carpophore) either entire or splitting into 2 halves; mericarps with 5 longitudinal ribs, 1 dorsal rib at the back of the mericarp, 2 lateral ribs at the commissure; 2 intermediate ribs between the dorsal and the lateral ones; sometimes with secondary ribs between the primary ones, these without fascicular bundles; often vittae in the ridges between the ribs or under the secondary ribs, and in the commissure, seldom under the primary ribs.\nDistr. Numerous genera and species, all over the world. The representatives native in Malaysia belong geographically to five types. (1) Ubiquitous genera ( Hydrocotyle, Centella, Oenanthe); one species, Hydrocotyle vulgaris, shows a remarkable disjunction, occurring in Europe & N. Africa and also in New Guinea, Australia and the Marshall Islands. (2) Western elements are Sanicula (wide-spread in the N. hemisphere but absent from New Guinea and Australia), Heracleum and Pimpinella; though some spp. are endemic their close relatives are found in SE. Asia. (3) A distinctly N. element is the Japano-Formosan Peucedanum japonicum in the islands N. of Luzon. (4) A distinct Australian element is Trachymene which centers in Australia and occurs also in New Caledonia and Fiji; this genus shows a relatively rich secondary centre in East Malaysia; another Australian alliance is found in ubiquitous Eryngium of which the only native Malaysian species hitherto known is allied to Australian spp. (5) A distinct Subantarcticdistributed genus is Oreomyrrhis which centers in New Guinea by 4 spp.; one of these occurs from Kinabalu to Australia, New Zealand to Andine South America as far as Mexico; a marked instance of the ancient alpine-Papuan South Pacific plant refuge (v. ST.).

Description: Erect tall annual, usually branched. Leaves simple, with 2 free stipules, in the lower part of the stem opposite, in the higher part spirally arranged, long-petioled, palmate, 3\xe2\x80\x9411-foliolate. Flowers (\xe2\x99\x82) (\xe2\x99\x80) or mostly (\xe2\x99\x82\xe2\x99\x80). Male flowers in short, dense cymes, which are united into lax, foliate, terminal panicles, very shortly pedicelled. Tepals 5, free, oblong, membranous, imbricate. Stamens 5, epitepalous; filaments erect and short in bud, linear, with a narrowed apex; anthers comparatively large, basifixed, 2-celled, cells opening longitudinally, rudimentary ovary absent. Female flowers solitary in the axil of a small, primary, membranous, entire bract closely enveloping the ovary, each enveloped by a spathaceous, conspicuous, acuminate, secondary bract. Perianth absent. Ovary sessile, 1-celled; style central; stigmas 2, sessile, long, filiform, caducous. Ovule solitary, pendulous. Achene closely enveloped by the much enlarged, secondary bract, broadly oval, with a concave rimmed base, much compressed, faintly keeled on the lateral margins; pericarp smooth, hard, crustaceous, easily splitting into two halves; albumen unilateral, scanty, fleshy; embryo large, horseshoe-shaped; cotyledons large; radicle long.\nDistr. Monotypic, native of Central Asia, cultivated in tropical Asia, naturalized in N. America.

Description: Small trees, mostly deciduous, bark gummy, wood soft, roots thickened, pungent; trunk often inflated. Leaves spread, imperfectly 2\xe2\x80\x944-imparipinnate; tissue with myrosin cells; pinnae opposite, provided with stipitate glands at the base of the petiolules and pinnae. Leaflets small, opposite, entire, all articulated. Stipules represented by blunt knobs. Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic, white (or yellow streaked red), in axillary panicles. Calyx tube short, as a hypanthium; lobes 5 imbricate, spreading or reflexed, separately dropping. Petals 5 free, anterior one largest and erect, others reflexed, posterior smallest. Disk lining the calyx tube, with a short free margin bearing the androecium. Perfect stamens 5 epipetalous; anthers dorsifixed, 1-celled, oblong, when lengthwise opened broader. Staminodes 5, subulate, with or without rudimentary anthers. Ovary superior, shortly stalked, 1-celled with 3 parietal placentas. Style filiform, stigma small. Ovules ~, in 2 series on each placenta. Capsule linear, beaked, 3\xe2\x80\x946-angled; valves thick, spongy, on the inside with pitted cavities in 1 row along the median line. Seeds 3-winged (or exalate), body roundish large. Embryo exalbuminous, straight, containing oil.\nDistr. Ca 10 spp., confined to the semi-arid countries of Somaliland, Madagascar, SW. Africa, NE. Africa, Asia Minor, 2 spp. in India.

Description: Halophobous, aquatic or palustrial perennial herbs, rooting in the mud or freefloating. Stem erect or floating, solid, with numerous air-chambers as are the petioles. Leaves rosulate or alternate, or solitary at the top of the stem, emersed, floating or submerged, broad or narrow, curvinerved (when emersed); petioles sheathing at the base. Flowers \xe2\x99\x80, ephemerous, mostly in racemiform, spiciform, subumbelliform or paniculiform inflorescences which are subtended by 1-2 spathelike or tubular leaf-sheaths, rarely solitary or pairwise in the leaf-axils. Bracts minute or absent. Flowers often simultaneously or centrifugally expanding. Perianth choriphyllous or gamophyllous, 6-merous, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, blue or lilac, rarely yellow, after anthesis marcescent and tightly including the ovary or the fruit. Stamens 6 or 3, rarely 1, on the base, in the tube or in the throat of the perianth, often unequal; filaments free; anthers 2-celled, cells bursting lengthwise, rarely opening by pores. Ovary superior, sessile, 3-celled, with axile placentas or 1-celled with 3 parietal or with 1 apical placenta. Ovules numerous or 1 and then pendulous from the apex of the cell. Style 1; stigma entire or minutely 3-lobed. Fruit a 3-valved capsule or indehiscent. Seed(s) longitudinally ribbed. Embryo central, terete, straight, hardly shorter than the copious, mealy endosperm.\nDistr. About 8 small genera and \xc2\xb1 25 species, 6 genera confined to the New World, one in Madagascar, one widely distributed in the Old World; in Malaysia one native genus, one introduced and abundantly naturalized, and one occasionally cultivated as an ornamental.