ALBERT

Description: The genus Stenandriopsis was created by S. Moore in Journ. of Bot. 44: 153. 1906 for a plant collected first by Vaughan Thompson and afterwards by Baron in an unspecified part of Madagascar. As the plate by which the description is accompanied depicts the specimen collected by Baron (n. 6708), the latter is to be regarded as the type. Stenandriopsis was referred by its author to the Justicieae, but this tribe is apparently accepted by him in the delimitation it received in BENTHAM and HOOKER’s “Genera Plantarum”, and as it is in this sense a most heterogeneous mixture, this does not greatly enlighten us. Of more importance is that Moore compares it with Crossandra Salisb. and Stenandrium Nees, i.e. with genera belonging to my subfamily Acanthoideae and referred by me respectively to the Acantheae and the Aphelandreae. However, in my paper on “The Acantheae of the Malesian Area. I. General Considerations” in Proc. Kon. Ned. Akad. v. Wetensch., Ser. c. 58: 166. 1955, I pointed out that it can not belong to the Acantheae as the corolla throat lacks the incision in the adaxial side which is characteristic for that tribe. It can not belong to the Aphelandreae either as the corolla limb is subactinomorphous instead of distinctly bilabiate. As I had to rely at that time entirely on Moore’s description and on the plate by which the latter is accompanied, I was unable to arrive at a conclusion, but I suggested that the genus might represent a new tribe of my Acanthoideae. Since then I have had the opportunity to inspect in the herbarium of the British Museum of Natural History the material on which the genus was based, for which I tender my best thanks to the Keeper, and now I am able to express a more definite opinion.

Description: The genus Praravinia was created by KORTHALS (in TEMMINCK, Verhand. Nat. Gesch. Ned. Overz. Bezitt., Bot., p. 189, tab. 41, 1839-1842) for a plant which he had collected in the south-eastern part of Borneo. He described it as similar in habit and doubtless nearly related to Urophyllum WALL. His diagnosis of the genus, however, does not substantiate this point of view, for it contains two statements which seem to exclude the possibility of a near affinity: the aestivation of the corolla lobes is described as imbricate, whereas in Urophyllum and its allies it is always valvate, and the number of corolla lobes is said to be half as large as that of the stamens, a condition unknown not only in Urophyllum but in the whole family. As in the description of the species the aestivation is correctly set down as valvate, the first statement need not trouble us: the word “imbricate” in the generic diagnosis is obviously a slip of the pen. The other statement, however, is repeated in the description of the species, but it strikes one as anomalous that immediately afterwards the 8—12 stamens are said to alternate with the corolla lobes, as this of course would be impossible when the latter were but half as numerous as the first. The discrepancy between the number of the corolla lobes and of the stamens led MIQUEL in his “Flora Indiae Batavae II, p. 225 (1857)” to consider Praravinia as a quite singular genus, rather out of place in the family Rubiaceae: it reminded him, he says, of the Samydeae (Flacourtiaceae). When he wrote this, he knew the genus merely from the description given by KORTHALS, but afterwards he found an opportunity to study the latter’s material. In his “De quibusdam Rubiaceis, Apocyneis et Asclepiadeis” (Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Bat. IV, p. 136, 1869) he proposes, as a result of this investigation, to exclude the genus from the Rubiaceae, and to raise it to family rank. The new family, for which he introduces the name Metrocladeaceae, should be regarded, however, as nearly related to the Rubiaceae. The description of the genus given by MIQUEL is much more detailed than the original one, but it unfortunately repeats its principal errors: the corolla is described as 4- to 6-merous, and its aestivation as imbricate. The male flower dissected by him is preserved in the Utrecht Herbarium; it is a fairly young bud, opened by a longitudinal slit. The corolla lobes had apparently been separated by a slight pressure, but I at once got the impression that it had been insufficient to effect a complete separation, and that the lobes were still cohering in pairs. I have boiled the flower therefore once more, and by exercising in my turn a slight pressure I succeeded in setting all the lobes free. Since then I have seen mature flowers of this and other species in which the isomery of corolla and androecium was unmistakable. MIQUEL’s speculations on the taxonomic position of the genus were based therefore on a false supposition, and need no further consideration; the analysis carried out below will show that KORTHALS was quite right when he placed Praravinia in the neighbourhood of Urophyllum.

Description: In my revision of the Rubiaceae in Pulle’s Flora of Surinam two genera, viz. Pagamea and Perama, which are now usually included in this family, are relegated to an appendix. On account of its superior ovary Pagamea was formerly reckoned to the Loganiaceae, from where it was referred to the Rubiaceae by Baillon and K. Schumann, who were of opinion that its solitary ascending ovules, and the valvate aestivation of the corolla lobes assigned it a place among the Psychotrieae. I think however that they overestimated the value of these characters, which are of a rather general nature, and that Pagamea both in the structure of its inflorescence and in that of its flowers shows so little resemblance to the Psychotrieae that it is impossible to include it in this group. In my opinion its removal from the Loganiaceae was not justified.

Description: The name Pleiocarpidia was coined by K. SCHUMANN (ENGLER und PRANTL, Natürliche Pflanzenfamilien, Nachträge I, p. 314, 1897) for a genus described in 1873 by HOOKER f. (BENTHAM et HOOKER, Genera Plantarum II (1), p. 71) as Aulacodiscus: HOOKER’S genus had to be rebaptized, because the name Aulacodiscus had been used already in 1844 by EHRENBERG for a genus belonging to the Diatomeae. A proposal made by O. KUNTZE(POST et KUNTZE, Lexicon, 1904) to change the spelling of the name introduced by SCHUMANN in Pliocarpidia can not be accepted, as there is no rule prescribing the transcription of the Greek diphthong in the manner advocated by the proposer. The plant on which HOOKER’S genus was founded, a small tree not uncommon in the Malay Peninsula, had been described already several years before by WIGHT (Calc. Journ. Nat. Hist. VII, p. 144, 1847) under the name Axanthes enneandra. The specific epithet points to the presence of nine stamens in the flower, but this is exceptional: in the flowers investigated by me the ordinary number proved to be seven. The genus Axanthes Bl., to which the species had been referred by WIGHT, was reduced shortly afterwards by BENTHAM and HOOKER f. (Niger Flora,p. 396,1849) and independently by KORTHALS (Ned. Kruidk. Arch. II, 2, p. 194,1851) to Urophyllum Wall. Later HOOKER made an exception for Axanthes enneandra Wight. The flowers of this plant were described by him as 8- to 16-merous, and on account of this character and of the presence of a “peltate stigma” he referred it to a new genus. Afterwards a second species from the same region was described by KING and GAMBLE under the name Aulacodiscus Maingayi, but this proved identical with the first (cf. RIDLEY, Flora of the Malay Peninsula II, p. 64, 1923). A really new species, however, was found in Mindanao: it was described by Merrill as Pleiocarpidia lanaensis.

Description: Among the Acanthaceae grown in the glasshouses of the University Botanic Garden, Utrecht, a plant labelled Aphelandra velutina drew my attention, first, because it obviously belonged to an entirely different genus, and secondly, because a description under this name could nowhere be found. The coincidence of these two grounds for bewilderment might be explained by assuming that Aphelandra was merely a perversion, probably caused by the inadvertency of a transcriber, of the true generic name. This sounded plausible enough, but the name itself could not be found, for all attempts to refer the plant to one of the existing genera failed. It looked as if the plant might have been described somewhere, but for the time being there was no indication at all as to the whereabouts of this description. A clue to the origin of the name was obtained some time afterwards when I found in the Utrecht herbarium a specimen belonging to the same species which was labelled Eranthemum velutinum: the specific epithet, therefore, was the same, but the generic name was different and, as I will show presently, nearer to the mark. The specimen, which dated from 1922, had been collected by the roadside in the Buitenzorg suburb Kotta Paris, and had apparently been named by an official of the Buitenzorg Botanic Gardens. It is, however, certainly no native Javanese plant, for the flora of Java, and particularly that of Buitenzorg, is well known, and a rather conspicuous plant like this one could not have escaped the attention: it was obviously a runaway from one of the neighbouring gardens.

Description: It is the fate of most historic personalities that in the course of time their work sinks almost completely into oblivion, and that the few lingering reminiscences of their achievements are transmitted to later generations in the form of second- or third-hand quotations, usually mixed with more or less anecdotic episodes from their life. It must be admitted that LINNÉ occupies in this respect a comparatively favourable position, for most educated people will remember that they heard in their school days of at least three things which are credited to him, in the first place that he produced a classification of the plant kingdom which is based on the number of stamens and carpels, the so-called sexual system, in the second place that he was the first who consistently applied the binomial nomenclature, i.e. the custom to designate an organism by a combination of two names, viz. a generic and a specific one, and thirdly that he was the originator of the pronouncement “Species to numeramus quot diversae formae in principio sunt creatae” (We count so many species as in the beginning different forms were created). Other achievements of LINNÉ may have been of greater importance, but it are these three things for which he is most generally remembered. The pronouncement quoted above, which means that the groups of individuals which form the species are descended from ancestors that owed their origin to an act of creation, derives its historic importance from the part it played in the debates on the theory of evolution. As it implies that the species are constant, it became the watchword of the antagonists. It is, however, rather strange that this pronouncement has so often been quoted, for it is found in LINNÉ’s earlier works only, and was in the later ones replaced by another statement that flatly denies the constancy of the species.

Description: Recently I got the opportunity of examining a specimen from the “Rijksherbarium”, Leiden, which was provided with a label on which ROTH had written in the middle the name of the plant, viz. “ Micranthus serpyllifol-Roth ” and in the lower right corner the name of the collector, viz. “Heyne”; in the lower left comer another hand had added “Ind. or. Hb. Roth”. As the specimen proved to answer the description of Micranthus serpyllifolius given on p. 282 of ROTH’s “Novae Plantarum Species, Halberstadt 1821,” there can be little doubt that it is either the type of this species or else a duplicate of the latter. This is the more important as none of the authors who in the past ventured an opinion with regard to the taxonomic position of ROTH’s species, apparently had seen the type. ROTH’s specimen was inserted in the Leiden Herbarium under the name Andrographis serpyllifolia R.W. (Acanthaceae), but this is obviously a misidentification. for Andrographis serpyllifolia does not fit ROTH’s description. The plant described by the latter has smaller and less numerous leaves and its flowers are arranged in terminal spikes instead of solitary or a few together in the axils of ordinary leaves.

Description: In my “Notes on the Acanthaceae of Java” (in Verh. Kon. Ned. Akad. v. Wetensch., Afd. Natuurk. 2nd Sect. 45, 2: 29,1948) I discussed the three epithets that had been applied to Rumph’s “Folium tinctorum” after the latter had been transferred to the genus Peristrophe, which, as is well known, was based on this species. Nees, the author of the genus, has used the name P. tinctoria, because he regarded Justicia tinctoria Roxb. as the oldest binomial that had been applied to it. This was contested both by Merrill and by Hochreutiner. Merrill was of opinion that Justicia bivalvis L (1759) was its oldest name, but as I pointed out l.c. this binomial must be regarded as a “nomen confusum”; the description indicates a Dicliptera species, whereas the plate in the “Hortus Malabaricus” and the specimina in Burman’s herbarium to which Linné referred, represent respectively Adhatoda vasica Nees and indeed “Folium tinctorum”. Hochreutiner, on the other hand, thought, that Justicia purpurea L (1753) was identical with Rumph’s plant, but this too proved to be a mistake. J. purpurea belongs, as R. Brown already had recognized, to Hypoëstes. As the binomials proposed by Merrill and Hochreutiner therefore had to be rejected, I accepted l.c. Peristrophe tinctoria (Roxb.) Nees as the correct name. This, however, is also erroneous, for Justicia tinctoria Roxb. itself is an illegitimate name, for which already long ago a legitimate one had been substituted. J. tinctoria Roxb. (1820) is a later homonym of J. tinctoria Lour. (1790). This was recognized already by Schultes (Mantissa 1: 140, 1822), who replaced Roxburgh’s epithet by roxburghiana quoting “ J. tinctoria Roxb., Fl. Ind. ed. Car. et Wall. I p. 124, n. 13 et hoc teste: Folium tinctorum Rumph. Amb. VI 51. t. XXII. f.l” adding “nomen mutandum erat ob tinctoriam antiquissimam Lour”. As Loureiro expressly stated that the plant described by him as J. tinctoria was not the same as “Folium tinctorum” of Rumph, it is clear that J. roxburghiana Schult. must be accepted as the oldest legitimate binomial for the latter. The correct name therefore becomes Peristrophe roxburghiana (Schult.) Brem. n. comb.

Description: Among the most remarkable finds made by Dr. van Steenis in the higher parts of the mountains of North Sumatra are a number of cushion plants. Two of these he recognized as Rubiaceae nearly related to Hedyotis verticillaris W. et A., a species occurring in similar habitats in the Nilgiri Hills, India, and in Ceylon. Hesitating, however, to express a definite opinion on their taxonomic position, he sent the material to me for further investigation. As I had occupied myself already for some time with the genus Hedyotis L. and its allies, this investigation offered me a Wellcome opportunity to test some of the principles which I had laid down for the subdivision of this group. Apart from the characters of the fruit I lay stress on the position of the inflorescence and on the form of the stipules. The name Hedyotis itself I wish to restrict to H. fruticosa L. and its nearest allies, i.e. to those species that are provided with terminal inflorescences, an ovary not distinctly produced beyond the insertion of the calyx, and fairly large drupes with apically and ventrally dehiscent pyrenes: to a group, therefore, which roughly agrees with Hedyotis section Diplophragma W. et A.

Description: Since the appearance of my „Notes on the Rubiaceae of Surinam” (in Rec. d. Trav. bot. néerl. XXXI, 1934, 248; also in Meded. Bot. Mus. Herb. Utrecht no. 11, 1934) a number of species and varieties new to the flora of that country have come to light. The majority have been collected by Mr. Rombouts during the 1935/36 expedition of the Boundary Commission who is surveying at present the border in the southern part of the colony; they were found along the River Corantyne and in the savannahs in the south-western part. One species was secured by Dr. Lanjouw, and has been mentioned already in his „Additions to Pulle’s Flora of Surinam I” (in Rec. d. Trav. bot. Néerl. XXXII, 1935, 258) and one, represented by a rather poor fruiting specimen collected years ago by the Forestry Bureau, was found among material provisionally consigned to another family. New to the flora of Surinam are the following twelve species: Alseis longifolia Ducke var. pentamera Brem. n. var., Sabicea cinerea Aubl., S. Romboutsii Brem. n. spec., S. surinamensis Brem. n. spec., Tocoyena surinamensis Brem. n. spec., Thieleodoxa nitidula Brem. n. spec., Guettarda Spruceana Müll. Arg., Psychotria Romboutsii Brem. n. spec., Declieuxia fruticosa (Willd. ex R. et S.) Kuntze, Diodia pulchristipula Brem. n. spec., Spermacoce guianensis Brem. n. spec, and Borreria verticillata (L.) G. F. W. Mey (the B. verticillata of the Flora of Surinam IV, 287 proved to be B. suaveolens G. F. W. Mey., under which name it had been recorded already by Miquel), and one variety: Sipanea pratensis Aubl. var. glaberrima Brem. n. var. Four of the ten genera to which these species belong, namely Alseis, Thieleodoxa, Declieuxia and Spermacoce, are also new to the flora of Surinam. Seven species and two varieties are entirely new, and will be described below. Before entering on this part of my task I will make a few remarks however on two of the species known already from elsewhere, namely on Guettarda Spruceana Müll. Arg. and on Borreria verticillata (L.) G. F. W. Mey, and on a third species, Coccocypselum guyanense (Aubl.) K. Sch., which is known since long from Surinam, but of which Mr. Rombouts collected a specimen differing somewhat from the older Surinam findings.