Publication Date:
2015-03-06
Description:
A sheet of the BSIP collections, gathered in Vanikoro Island, Santa Cruz group, near the proper Solomon Is., had tentatively been identified as probably belonging to Euphorbiaceae, but was discarded by Airy Shaw in 1962 and now again in 1974. Closer examination showed it to belong to Melicytus, a suggestion made by Dr. R. C. Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr. This genus is distributed in the West Pacific Islands, from New Zealand to Samoa; it was mapped by Van Balgooy in Pacific Plant Areas (2, 1966, 103). Though the specimen is male, we assume it to belong to Melicytus, not Hymenanthera. This represents a considerable extension of the generic area.
Comparing the floral structure it is distinctly different from the Samoan form and also from M. ramiflorus Forst. by the large, elongated, long-acuminate petals. It is a good match of the Fijian
Repository Name:
National Museum of Natural History, Netherlands
Type:
Article / Letter to the editor
Format:
application/pdf
