ALBERT

Description: Tragopogon dubius Scop. Het duinterrein te Nieuwe Sluis in de gemeente Groede, waar verleden jaar de planten van Tragopogon dubius Scop. groeiden, is de afgelopen winter in verband met herstellingen aan de zeewering met behulp van draglines en bulldozers geëgaliseerd, waardoor de Tragopogon naar ik dacht volkomen uitgeroeid zou zijn. Ik bemerkte dit pas dit voorjaar en kon dus geen maatregelen nemen om een gedeelte van het terrein te sparen. Bovendien vrees ik, dat men aan mijn verzoek toch geen gevolg had kunnen geven. Enkele weken geleden bezocht ik het terrein weer en tot mijn vreugde vond ik toch nog twee planten, die het overleefd hadden. Mij bleek echter, dat kneuen bijzonder verzot zijn op de onrijpe zaden van deze soort. Zij pikken de omwindsels stuk en halen zo de onrijpe zaden er uit, zodat het de vraag zal zijn of er nog iets voor het volgend jaar zal overblijven. Ook verleden jaar was mij dat opgevallen, doch bij de vele planten, die er toen groeiden, was dat niet zo’n bezwaar. Eigenaardig is, dat ik aan planten van Tragopogon pratensis iets dergelijks nimmer heb waargenomen. Hebben anderen dat wellicht wel gedaan?

Description: Small trees, shrubs or twining woody plants, rarely herbs; branches terete. Glands present in various parts. Indumentum consisting of simple hairs, or in Viburnum sometimes lepidote; glandular hairs mostly present. Stems often pithy. Leaves decussate, simple or deeply divided (Sambucus), sometimes provided with pitted or cup-shaped glands exuding resin. Stipules absent or very small. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, mostly cymosely arranged, 4—5-merous; outer flowers in an inflorescence sometimes differing from the normal ones, rarely ( Sambucus p.p.) some fls aborted into extra-floral nectaries. Calyx adnate to the ovary, (4—)5-fid or -toothed, mostly constricted below the limb; sepals often enlarged in fruit. Corolla epigynous, gamopetalous, sometimes 2-lipped, lobes mostly imbricate in bud. Stamens inserted on the corolla tube, alternating with the lobes, extrorse or introrse. Anthers free, 2-celled, dorsifixed, versatile, cells parallel, opening lengthwise, mostly introrse; filaments sometimes reflexed or curved in bud. Ovary inferior, 1-(2-)3-5(-8)-celled, in fruit cells sometimes partly abortive. Style terminal, often slender with one knoblike stigma, or 3 short partly connate styles. Ovules 1(-~), pendulous or axile. Fruit a drupe or berry, rarely a capsule. Seeds often only one per fruit, often with bony testa. Endosperm copious, sometimes ruminate; embryo straight, often small and linear, axial, cotyledons oval or oblong. Distr. Ca 10-14 genera, mainly distributed on the N. hemisphere, in the tropics mostly confined to the mountains, on the S. hemisphere only Viburnum and Sambucus, an endemic genus in New Zealand, two monotypic endemic genera in New Caledonia, in Australia only Sambucus in the eastern part.

Description: Annual or perennial, often grass-like herbs, only the monotypic African genus Microdracoides tree-like; the perennial spp. with short- or long-creeping, mostly sympodial rhizome not rarely emitting stolons. Stems solid, exceptionally hollow, sometimes septate, often trigonous, more rarely 2-sided or terete, or 4-, 5-, or multangular, usually nodeless below the inflorescence. Leaves often 3- ranked, more rarely distichous or polystichous, basal and/or cauline, usually sheathing at the base, the sheaths closed (in Mal.), very rarely open, the blades as a rule sessile, linear (grass-like) or setaceous, rarely lanceolate and petioled, rarely much reduced or even absent; sheath and blade whether or not separated by a rim of short hairs or by a membranous ligule almost completely fused to the upper surface of the blade. Flowers simple, inconspicuous, each subtended by a bract (glume), arranged in small spiciform units (spikelets), in subfam. Caricoideae strictly unisexual, in subfam. Cyperoideae tribe Hypolytreae composed of monandrous lateral ‘flowers’ and a terminal ovary, in tribe Cypereae reduced to bisexual synanthia, a few of which may be functionally male or female by abortion of the other sex. Spikelets often (always?) cymose (‘pseudo-spikelets’), (1-) few- to many-flowered. Inflorescence paniculate, anthelate, capitate, or spicate, with few to many spikelets, rarely reduced to a single spikelet, often subtended by 1-several leafy involucral bracts, Perianth consisting of bristles, hairs, or scales, but often absent. Stamens often 3, not rarely reduced to 2 or 1, very rarely more than 3 to numerous; filaments ligulate, free, only in a few Carex spp. connate, sometimes strongly elongating after anthesis; anthers basifixed, introrse, opening lengthwise by a slit. Ovary solitary, superior, usually 2- or 3-carpellate, unilocular; style not rarely thickened at the base, the thickened part whether or not articulated with the ovary; stigmas 2 or 3 (rarely more), only in a few spp. style unbranched; ovule solitary, erect from the base of the ovary, anatropous. Fruit indehiscent, a nut (often termed achene), sessile, or seated on a disk, free, or surrounded by a modified prophyll (perigynium, utricle). Seed erect, with thin testa not adhering to the pericarp; embryo small, at least partly surrounded by abundant mealy or fleshy endosperm. Dist ribution. About 70-80 genera with probably some 4000 spp., throughout the world.

Description: Although Clarke saw the type of Scirpus erectus Poir. in the Paris Herbarium he misapplied the name to a quite different species occurring in Madagascar, S. and E. Asia, and tropical Australia. Herein he was followed by Ridley, Merrill, Backer, and others. It has now generally been accepted that the correct name of this species is Scirpus juncoides Roxb. and that the name Scirpus erectus Poir. does not belong to its synonymy. After having examined the type of S. erectus I am convinced that the question was admirably cleared up by Chermezon (see Arch. Bot. 4, 1931, 26, and also in Humbert, Fl. Madag., fam. 29, 1937, 149). Scirpus erectus is much nearer to the European S. supinus L. than to S. juncoides Roxb. It differs from S. supinus by the larger spikelets, the larger, more distinctly mucronate glumes, the bristly appendage of the connective, the bifid style, and the larger, biconvex, only faintly wavyridged, elliptic or suborbicular nuts. It is an African species extending from the Mediterranean region through tropical Africa to Madagascar and Mauritius. There can be no doubt that Isolepis uninodis Delile is conspecific with Scirpus erectus Poir. Delile’s description is very accurate: “épis cylindriques, ovoïdes-lanceolés ... écailles ovales, aiguës ... deux stigmates ... graine lenticulaire, transversalement rugueux vers les bords.” The differences with Scirpus supinus are clearly indicated: “ses graines [du S. supinus] sont ovoïdes-cunéiformes, trigones, ridées transversalement sur toute leur surface; ses styles sont trifides.” Moreover, Delile’s excellent figure leaves no doubt whatever on the identity of his species.

Description: Mapania holttumii Kern, nom. nov. — Mapania insignis Holttum, Gard. Bull. Sing. 11, 1947, 293, non Sandwith, Kew Bull. 1933, 496. When publishing the name Mapania insignis for a species occurring in the Malay Peninsula, Holttum overlooked the existence of the earlier homonym Mapania insignis Sandw. for a different species from British Guyana. I therefore propose to replace the illegitimate binomial by that of Mapania holttumii.

Description: Dr. McClure’s studies on the bamboos date from a period of service in China, at first as an Agricultural Explorer, since 1931 as a Professor of Botany at Lingnan University in Canton. On field trips in the Chinese interior and in Indo-China he collected numerous living bamboos, which were transplanted and studied in the to-day still intact Lingnan Bamboo Garden he had early established. After in 1941 the war had forced him to leave China, he studied living bamboos in the West Indies, Central and South America, and after the war in India, East Pakistan, Java, and Luzon. Being particularly interested not only in morphology, but also in taxonomy, he revised the bamboo collections of several herbaria in the United States and Europe. Proof of his comprehensive knowledge thus acquired is given in his book, which indeed brings the economically important and scientifically interesting, but for various reasons much neglected bamboos into fresh perspective. Students both in pure and applied botany will find here a wealth of information, based on the author’s personal experience as well as on his familiarity with the pertinent literature.

Description: Perennial herbs with tufted or creeping rhizome, monoecious, rarely dioecious. Stems arising centrally or laterally, erect or obliquely erect, mostly triquetrous or trigonous, rarely subterete, solid or sometimes hollow, often clothed at the base by persistent leaf-sheaths or their fibrous remains. Leaves tristichous, usually narrowly linear, sheathing at the base, with a ligule at the junction of blade and sheath, rarely lanceolate or elliptic with a more or less distinct petiole and eligulate, mostly basal and subbasal, 0-several higher on the stem, the lower ones often reduced to bladeless sheaths; sheaths of the stem-leaves and bracts closed. Inflorescence paniculiform, racemiform or spiciform, more rarely reduced to a single spikelet. Spikelets 1-very numerous, terete, sessile or peduncled, few- to many-flowered, wholly male, wholly female, or bisexual (androgynous when male flowers above, gynaecandrous when female flowers above). Bracts foliaceous or glume-like, often sheathing, sometimes wanting. Base of the branches of the inflorescence usually with a utriculiform or ocreiform bracteole (cladoprophyllum) surrounding it. Flowers unisexual, naked, solitary in the axils of the spirally arranged glumes; male flowers consisting of 3 free or rarely more or less connate stamens; anthers linear; female flowers consisting of a single pistil enclosed in a bottle-shaped prophyll (;utricle, perigynium). Style either continuous with the ovary and persistent, or articulated with it and deciduous, straight or flexuous, often incrassate at the base; stigmas 2 or 3, protruding through the small terminal orifice of the utricle. Vestigial rachilla (see Uncinia) rarely present. Utricles membranous, chartaceous, or coriaceous, bicarinate, sometimes winged, sessile or stipitate, beakless to strongly beaked, nerveless, nerved, or ribbed, glabrous, or pubescent or hispid, papillose or puncticulate or smooth, sometimes spongy at the base; beak truncate, obliquely cleft, bidentate, or bifurcate at the top. Nut trigonous (when stigmas 3), or lenticular (plano-convex or biconvex; when stigmas 2), enclosed within the utricle. Distr. A large genus with 600 to 1000 spp., the majority of them outside the tropics. However, the most primitive section, Vigneastra with a compound, paniculate inflorescence and androgynous spikelets, occurs mainly in the tropics of the Old World, from sea-level up to 3000 m. This section is represented in Malesia with 11 spp., and is there by far the largest section.