ALBERT

Description: ROXBURGH described in his Flora in the year 1820 a very curious annual grass and placed it in the genus Eleusine as E. verticillata ROXB.. This grass has spikelets which agree in many characters with those of the genus Eleusine, especially as to the rugose grain with a caducous pericarp, but differing from Eleusine in the up to 20-flowered spikelets and in the lemmas with a three-cuspidate summit. The many-flowered spikelets give the plant more the habit of an Eragrostis and under this genus a specimen was mentioned by WALLICH in his Catalogue. There are in the characters of the spikelets many other differences with the genus Eleusine and with Eragrostis. KUNTH and STEUDEL, indeed placed the plant under Leptochloa and there are still other opinions about this plant. An advancement in this matter was the opinion of LINDLEY, who published in the year 1836 a new genus Acrachne WIGHT et ARN., in the second edition of his ”Natural System of Botany“, p. 381, based upon ROXBURGH’s Eleusine verticillata, The name Acrachne was already given by WIGHT et ARNOTT as Acrachne eleusinoides, a nomen in WIGHT, Cat. no. 1760. This name was placed by STEUDEL in the year 1854 under E. verticillata ROXB., a name also accepted by NEES. The name Acrachne, although based upon a species which was validly published, was, however, not described by LINDLEY and the combination A. verticillata was not made by LINDLEY. At that time the genus Acrachne was therefore not valid.

Description: Years ago I intensively studied the grasses of the tribe of the Maydeae. The results of my investigations were published in an article ”A contribution to the knowledge of the Indian Maydeae“, issued in the ”Mededeelingen van ’s Rijks Herbarium“ no. 67 (1931). In this paper the grasses of this tribe from the Old World were treated and especially the various genera were characterized according to their caryopses. The curious form and the place of the hilum of the caryopsis were accepted as characters of high importance to distinguish and to establish the various genera, and it was especially the genus Polytoca, which was more sharply defined by the place of the hilum, the lower margins of the grain enclosing a cavity at the bottom of which is found the hilum. In the genus Chionachne such a cavity is not present and the hilum is found at the back of the grain. I accepted 4 species of the genus Chionachne. One of them, viz. Ch. Koenigii (SPRENGEL) THWAITES, is rather widely distributed from British India and Ceylon to Tonkin and from Celebes to Queensland. Ch. biaurita HACKEL is endemic in the Philippines and Ch. semiteres (BENTH.) HENR. was only observed in the Deccan Peninsula and Burma. The fourth species was mentioned by me from Queensland as being Chionachne Sclerachne BAILEY. The type of BAILEY was not represented in the Kew Herbarium and I saw only a fragment from a plant collected by F. v. MUELLER, which I accepted as being BAILEY’s species. DOMIN mentioned from Queensland only Polytoca cyathopoda (F. v. M.) BAILEY and not having seen DOMIN’s plant I had only to accept that the identification was correct. Recently Mr. HUBBARD from the Kew Herbarium could examine DOMIN’s plant and found that it belonged to the genus Chionachne.

Description: Some years ago I treated a number of species of the genus Axonopus in Blumea IV, p. 510. Among them was Axonopus Fockei Henr., based upon Mez’s Paspalum Fockei, which was published in Fedde’s Repertorium XV, 1917, p. 62. I mentioned Ule’s number 8022 as identified by Mez himself being his Paspalum Fockei.

Description: When BUSE gave an enumeration of the grasses collected by JUNGHUHN in Java and Sumatra, he mentioned under Paspalum a species, described by RETZIUS in the year 1781 as Paspalum hirsutum. BUSE identified a grass from Sumatra as being the species of RETZIUS, on account of the description, having certainly not studied the authentic specimen, which was at that time not easy to consult. It may be that even the work of RETZIUS was not at his disposal, it is probable that he studied only the description, given afterwards in LAMARCK’S Encyclopédie. RETZIUS described his species from China, where it was collected by BLADH. Although the description of RETZIUS agrees fairly well with BUSE’S plant, we are in modern times not so satisfied with such an identification, because it is a priori not sure at all that the Chinese species is identic with a grass from the high plateau of Sumatra, the more because since the description by RETZIUS and the identification by BUSE, such a Paspalum was never found in the wide area between China and Sumatra. I therefore carefully studied the type of RETZIUS at the herbarium of Lund (Sweden), which was kindly forwarded for study from the director at Lund and I compared it with BUSE’S type, preserved at the Rijksherbarium. The latter is in a very good condition. Already at first sight the two types agree very much especially in the vegetative parts, the number of racemes, their length and general form In the genus Paspalum, a very large one, much weight is given by agrostologists to the form and outline of the spikelets and I will therefore give my opinion on the type of RETZIUS first. The plant consists of an upper part of the culm with 3 very hirsute leaves and 2 distant racemes. The spikelets have hairy pedicels, the short hairs are sparingly mixed with long ones. The form of the spikelets is obovate-oblong; they are obtuse at the summit and rounded. The first glume (mostly rudimentary in the genus) is wanting the second one, which is very convex, is slightly shorter than the spikelet, minutely punctulate and provided with 5 very strong nerves, a midnerve and two marginal ones, the latter anastomosing upwards and running into the midnerve at the top, which is thickened where the nerves meet. The sterile lemma or third glume is flat and as long as the spikelet; it has 3 strong nerves, a midnerve and 2 submarginal ones, anastomosing at the summit; the true margins are membranaceous and distinctly hairy at the middle, the hairs more or less flexuous or curved. Besides these 3 nerves there are 2 more nerves at a rather broad distance from the midnerve; these two nerves are faint and distinct only at the base of the glume and evanescent upwards, being undulate and giving that part of the glume a scrobiculate, transversely wrinkled appearance. The fruit (fertile lemma) is dark brown and exposed by the shortness of the covering glume. From all these characters it is evident that RETZIUS’S plant belongs to a group of species in the genus Paspalum called by Mrs. AGNES CHASE the „plicatula”. Representative species of this group are the well-known New World Paspalum plicatulum Michx. and the variable Old World species Paspalum scrobiculatum L.. The characters of the true Paspalum hirsutum are given on my plate, which is an exact copy of the type specimen, the spikelets being magnified 10 times. Returning to BUSE’S plant from Sumatra, I indicate here the different characters of the spikelets. Their form and outline is different, they are not only a little longer but more elliptic, not rounded at the summit but distinctly obtusely apiculate; the convex glume is 3-nerved only, the marginal nerves not doubled, the glume is longer than the fertile lemma, obtecting it entirely and protruding above it; the flat sterile lemma is more narrowed upwards too with 3 very distinct nerves and 2 interjecting faint ones, the surface is wrinkled as in the American Paspalum plicatulum and the body of the glume is perfectly glabrous. Comparing types and the figures given by me, we see thus that there are distinct differences between the spikelets of the two types and it is therefore evident that we have here two different species. These differences between the two species as to the morphological characters are supported by the very different geographical distribution, the plant described by BUSE being hitherto only known from the prairies of the plateau of Padang lawas in Sumatra. Since BUSE described his species and the characters of the spikelets are given here in extenso, it is not necessary to describe BUSE’S plant once more. It is named here after the collector Dr HORNER as a species, endemic on Sumatra, the Paspalum Horneri HENR. = Paspalum hirsutum BUSE, non RETZIUS. A puzzling plant was described by BUSE in the year 1856 in DE VRIESE’S Plantae Indiae Batavae Orientalis as Streptachne indica. BUSE was an accurate observer and described this plant exactly but he unfortunately overlooked an important character. Having studied his type, a plant collected on Java by REINWARDT, I found that the spikelets have an articulation below the glume and thus easily fall of in toto. In the large tribe of the Agrostideae to which BUSE’S plant belongs, this Streptachne is thus not a member of the subtribe Stipeae as BUSE supposed, this subtribe having always an articulation above the glumes which are persistent at maturity. It was thus at once evident that BUSE’S plant was not a Steptachme at all, but more allied with such genera as Polypogon and Chaeturus. It belongs to the genus Garnotia which is already known from Java. BUSE’S species is placed by me under Garnotia stricta BROGN.

Description: A species with the habit of Aristida divaricata H. et B., but welldistinguished by the wanting column and the curious tuberculate lemmas. Closely allied to Aristida gentilis HENR., which differs however in the other position of the glumes and in the smooth lemma. The species resembles in some characters the Aristida Parishii HITCHC., the latter has however a totally different shape of the panicle and the lemma is not tuberculate-hispid, but scabrous only on the upper half. Among duplicates from the U. S. Nat. Herbarium, kindly received from Mrs. A. CHASE, I found a second plant belonging to the species, a plant also collected in Arizona, north slope of Santa Rita Mountains, leg. D. GRIFFITHS no. 7269.

Description: Being engaged during several years with a revision of the grasses preserved in the Rijks-Herbarium at the University of Leyden, my attention was called to the group of the Stipeae, and especially to the very difficult genus of Aristida. After an exhaustive study of the literature, I thought it desirable to have a monograph of this genus, containing extensive keys for the determination of all the species hitherto known, and I resolved to prepare such a work. It has been my good fortune that I had at my disposal not only the valuable collections of the Rijks-Herbarium, but that by the courtesy of the directors of the great herbaria in Europe and in America, I could study many thousands of specimens, among them authentic specimens and types. So several years elapsed before the revision was finished. Before I am going to publish my work, it seemed desirable to prepare a preliminary paper on the subject, dealing with the literature studied and the results of the critical examination of the types, moreover the new species found in herbaria are included in this paper. To find easily the original description and the type specimen, I give in alphabetical order all the species and varieties hitherto described, no matter if they are accepted in my monograph as valid or not.

Description: Among the grasses in the Rijks-Herbarium I found an undeterminated Panicum, received from the British Museum, collected in the Bombay Presidency by Mr. YOUNG. This plant is very interesting as it belongs to a small group of about 18 species in general appearance very similar to the genus Brachiaria as accepted by American authors. ¹) In the genus Brachiaria the spikelets are placed with the first glume towards the axis (adaxial), but in the group forming the genus Urochloa, the first glume is turned away from the rhachis (spikelets abaxial). Nearly all the species of Urochloa have a very obtuse apex of the fertile valve, ending in a fine mucro.

Description: Differt a typo praesertim columna valde abbreviata, tantum 8 mm. longa, bene torta, aristis brevioribus, circa 25 mm. longis; glumae inaequilongae, inferior 8—10 mm. longa, acuta, superior 13—14 mm. longa, subobtusa, gluma fertilis laevissima, callo acuto 1½ mm. longo, ad 5. mm. longa. Central South Australia: without precise locality, collected bij H. J. HILLIER, no. 46. Type in the Kew Herbarium, presented in 1906.

Description: Wie bekannt, ist TORREY’S Lepidium flavum sehr ausgezeichnet durch die gelbe Krone mit der zweizähnigen Frucht und dem sehr langen hervorragenden Griffel *). Lepidium flavum gehört also zur Sektion Monoploca (BUNGE 1845 pro gen.) THELLUNG, und zwar speziell zur Grex Alyssoidea THELL. ¹) Bei einer Revision des Lepidium-materials im Rijks-Herbarium zu Leiden (Holland) fand der eine von uns unter drei Lepidium flavum-Pflanzen ein einziges gut ausgebildetes Exemplar dieser Species, welches sehr bemerkenswert war. Die Flügel der Frucht fehlen ganz und gar; dadurch macht diese flügellose, aber immer mit den sehr langen Griffel versehene Frucht einen eigentümlichen Eindruck. Die Pflanze ist also mit dem Schlüssel der monografische Bearbeitung ²) nicht zu bestimmen. Die genannte Pflanze weicht, abgesehen von der Fruchtform, in keinem einzigen Merkmal von normalen Pflanzen des Lepidium flavum ab, und wir haben wahrscheinlich nur eine besondere Varietät, nicht eine neue Art vor uns. Diese auffallende, anscheinend noch nicht beschriebene Pflanze ³) kann wohl nicht mit Lepidium Jaredi BRANDEGEE identifiziert werden, da unsere Pflanze ganz kahl ist. Eine Abnormität an die man denken könnte, ist wohl nicht anzunehmen, da das Exemplar ganz wie typisches Lepidium flavum ausgebildet ist und bei allen Früchten des wohlentwickelten Exemplars der Flügelrand gänzlich fehlt. Es dürfte also am ehesten eine neue Varietät (Mutationsform?) sein und wir werden für diese die Bezeichnung apterum vorschlagen mit folgender Diagnose: Racemi fructiferi ut in typo breves. Siliculae fere orbiculatae, apice non emarginatae sed aequaliter rotundatae, apterae, stylo longissimo.

Description: Paspalum montanum HENR. nov. spec. Perennis, caespitosa, stricte erecta, ad 60 cm alta; culmi glabri, plurinodes, nodis adpresse pubescentibus; vaginae arctae vel parum hiantes, hirsutae vel villoso-pubescentes, ligula scariosa, brunnea; laminae lineares, ad 1 cm latae vel inferiores angustiores, ad 20 cm longae, acuminatae, nervo crasso praeditae; inflorescentia terminalis, paniculata, e racemis paucis, in axillis barbatis, 4—5 cm longis formata; rhachis partialis subplana, leviter undulata, spiculae binatae, inaequaliter pedicellatae, altera subsessilis, altera longiter pedicellata, pedicelli glabri, subangulati; spiculae leviter sed distincte obovatae, strigosae, 2 mm longae, ad 1.4 mm latae, apice obtusae, vix vel leviter tantum acutatae, nervis haud visibilis, gluma inferior deest, gluma superior et lemma sterilis aequilongae, lemma fertilis 1.7 mm longa, badia vel brunnea, suborbicularis, distincte striato-punctata, haud nitida.