ALBERT

Description: The bogs of S. E. Groningen are part of the great peat-marshes extending from S. E. Drente as far as N.W. Germany inclusive. So far as the territory of Westerwolde is concerned, people have begun digging off very early. According to the map by Krayenhoff in 1816 nearly the whole peat-marsh westward from the line Blijham—Termaarsch had already been reclaimed, only a few parts still being covered with the original peat-layer (cf. map, fig. 1). The digging off east of the above line commences at the beginning of the 19th century on the borderland of Groningen and Drente. Borings were performed in three places and the samples pollenanalytically and stratigraphically examined.

Description: As an introduction to a number of researches of his own the author wishes to give the following data: „Veen” has two meanings in Dutch: 1. in a petrographic sense (peat) Von Büllow’s definition was accepted: „Torf” ist zu deflnieren als ein meist dunkles, kohlenstoffreiches und ± saures Gemenge unvollständig spezifisch-zersetzter Pflanzenteile, das erdgeschichtlich jüngste Glied der Verwantschaftsreihe der Kohlen, dessen Bildung noch heute andauert.” 2. in a plant-sociological-geographic sense (bog) the following definition has been suggested: a bog is a plot, the surface of which consists of a layer of peat, either covered or not with vegetation, with which that layer is genetically connected. The classification of bogs according to their position with regard to the water-level of the surroundings (Staring) and that of the geological chart were rejected on account of their ambiguous character. The classification suggested by Van Baren according to the environment in which the bogs have been formed, was likewise thought insufficient. Preference was given to the classification according to the plants which gave rise to the peat (eutrophic, mesotrophic and oligotrophic bogs) and according to the origin of the water needed for peat formation (topogenous, ombrogenous and soligenous bogs). The conditions of peat-formation are of a botanical (presence of a vegetation and micro-organisms), climatologic (presence of a certain temperature and moisture) and geological nature (presence of a basin, valley or dead river-branch, certain level of ground water, a possible impervious layer). With reference to a number of authors (Picardt; Van Lier; Grisebach, Venema and Staring; Weber) the alteration in conception as to peatformation from the 17th via the 18th and 19th to the 20th century has been given. The word „Peel” cannot be derived from „palus”. Nothing is certain about its origin. It may mean the low land, bog or marsh. The bogs of the Peel lie on the Brabant-Limburg border-plateau (fig. 2). Lorié and Pannekoek van Rheden have shown that the peatformation of the Peel is likely to have occurred in channels, which have been formed by the Meuse, in co-operation with wind and rain (fig. 4). The bogs were therefore in the first instance topogenous formations, which afterwards developed into ombrogenous bogs. For his own research the author collected peat in three ways: 1. by cutting lumps of peat from open profiles; 2. by boring with a simple peat-bore (photograph 1); 3. by boring with the Utrecht peat-bore, an improvement on Dachnowski’s (fig. 5). To assist in the pollen-analytic examination the samples were treated according to Erdtman’s method. The latter has the following advantages compared with the usual treatment with a 10% KOH-solution: 1. the surface-structures of the pollen-grains are more distinct and as a result the grains themselves can be recognized better; 2. the pollen is more concentrated, so that in spite of the method taking up much time, a saving of time is possible. How the method is applied may be found in the chapter concerned (p. 38 and following). For the stratigraphic examination the samples were broken apart in a glass-bowl of water and viewed with a binocular microscope. Dry sandy samples were broken in water, when seeds and other vegetative parts came floating to the top; next they were put with a brush on thick blotting paper and studied through the binocular microscope. The designations for the sediments and species of peat have been derived from Fægri & Gams. For Scheuchzeria peat a new designation has been added. A plea was made for replacing the word pollen-analysis by „palynology”. A survey of the observations and examinations up to abt. 1935 closes the introduction (see the diagrams of Weber, Erdtman and Duyfjes in the figs. 6, 7, 8 and 9). The author’s own research refers to the Southern and Astense Peel, as in the remaining grounds of the geological chart indicated I 4v (= raised bog) no samples could be taken owing to the digging off having progressed too far. 10 profiles were examined. The situation of the bore-sites has been given in the geological chart of the grounds (fig. 3). The result of the examination (figs. 10—27) and the discussion on it may be summerized as follows: Zoning of pollen-diagrams The sub-zoning of the late- and post-glacial periods according to Blytt & Sernander has proved useful as a zoning of pollen-diagrams, provided atlantic and sub-boreal are joined. It is desirable to replace Blytt & Sernander’s terminology by a different one, because the authors gave a climatologic connotation to their names of periods. The limit between pleistocene and holocene was drawn between preboreal and boreal as Florschütz did. As phases of the holocene the following names were suggested: young post-glacial = sub-atlantic mid post-glacial = sub-boreal and atlantic old post-glacial = boreal. Neither in the Peel nor elsewhere in Holland have Allerød-deposits been found. They are not likely to be found either, as on account of the long distance from the land-ice-margin the flora will have been hardly or not at all influenced by the Allerød interstadial period. For Holland therefore the zoning of the late-glacial according to Firbas (1935) may be considered sufficient. The names of the periods do not bear a climatologic connotation as those of the post-glacial phases do. For the sake of a unity the following names have been suggested: young late-glacial = pre-boreal mid late-glacial = sub-arctic period old late-glacial = arctic period. Forest-history In a table (p. 98), in which likewise the Peel diagrams of Weber, Erdtman and Duyfjes have been inserted, the examined profiles have been arranged from North to South. From each profile it has been stated whether it originated in a certain period (+) or not (—). The sub-arctic phase was characterized by forests of Betula and Pinus and was followed by the pre-boreal phase, in which Corylus and Alnus occurred. Also from the other Dutch diagrams (see list on p. 99) it appeared that in the Netherlands the Alnus pollen occurs with an equal frequency before, during and after that of the Quercetum mixtum. The old post-glacial zone of the diagrams shows a peak in the Pinusline. In contrast with the from Mid-Europe there is not always a maximum in the Corylus-curve after the Pinus-peak. In other Dutch diagrams this phenomenon is likewise found. Only in 28% of all Dutch profiles with a boreal zone does a hazel-maximum succeed a Pinus one. They often co-incide (16%), while in the remaining cases no hazelpeak has been established. There is no fixed order of sequence in the occurrence of the components of the Quercetum mixtum, either in the Peel or elsewhere in Holland. The mid post-glacial is the phase of culmination of warmth-loving forest elements: Alnus pollen shows the highest percentage in this zone. Quercus pollen also occurs in great quantities, while Ulmus and Tilia take up an important place up to the „Grenzhorizont”. The absolute and empiric Fagus pollen limits are found at different heights in the mid post-glacial zone of the diagrams, the rational limit lies somewhere near the „Grenzhorizont”. In the young post-glacial phase the Fagus pollen attains fairly high percentages (up to 30%). The maxima in the East and South-east of the Netherlands are between 20% and 38%; they decrease towards the coast and increase towards the South-east (Hautes Fagnes, Belgium) and East (Germany). It seems incorrect to class the Netherlands almost entirely among the oak-alderterritory poor in beeches, as Firbas did. An attempt has been made to fit the Peel-diagrams into Overbeck & Schneider’s zonation system. For the territory for which it has been made there are already difficulties (p. 104), for use in the Peel and other Dutch diagrams there are even more objections (p. 68, 104). Godwin’s zonation system appeared to be a little less forced, but not quite useful on account of too many details. From his horizons that of Ulmus proved useless for the continent. Neither for the Peel nor for the Netherlands and its surrounding territory can a detailed zonation system be designed. It has proved difficult to proceed any farther than Rudolph’s „Grundsukzession”: birch, pine-hazel-mixed oak-forest-beech, in which the alder generally joins the mixed oak-forest and the hornbeam the beech. Before drawing far-reaching conclusions from the course of the curves (as has been done by some authors) more palynological researches are needed in accordance with the actuality principle, known from geology. Pollen-grains from warmth-loving trees in seemingly sub-arctic spectra In profile 4 (Deurnse Peel II) pollen-grains of Abies, Alnus, Picea, Tilia, Ulmus and Corylus were found in the „late-glacial” zone (figs. 14, 15). Investigations were made as to which of the following possibilities would be the cause of their appearance: 1. in taking and preparing the samples pollution occurred; 2. pollen-transport over long distances has taken place; 3. the pollen-grains found have got secondarily into the deposit; 4. warmth-loving trees have occurred in favourable circumstances in the late-glacial phase or 5. in an interstadial period or in an interglacial phase. The said pollen-grains probably hail from a Würm interstadial or interglacial phase. Interglacial peat On the site of the bore-point 7 it was possible to collect samples from the layers under the peat. The upper 40 cm of the diagram Griendtsveen IX (fig. 27) of this profile proved a repetition of the lower 40 cm of the Griendtsveen I profile (fig. 18). The diagram shows that pollen of Carpinus, Picea and Abies occurs showing the deposit to be of interglacial age. The pollen-curves, however, pass unnoticed from an interglacial into a post-glacial portion. The limit is likely to be found between the two, about 30 cm below the mowing field. There is therefore a great stratigraphic hiatus. Pollen-analytically it could not be decided from which interglacial period the profile hails; on account of its situation on the middle terrace, it was deemed likely that it was an Eem sea deposit. The examined profile probably corresponds to Jessen & Milthers’ zone g; showing it to have been formed at the end of the Eem sea period. The Meuse therefore cannot have flowed through this part of the Astense Peel after the mid Eemean phase. Stratigraphy This is difficult to summarize. Compare various profiles. Individual mention may be made here of: 1. peat on a podsol layer; this was found in two places (Deurnse Peel I Kraaienhut and Griendtsveen VIII). Peat-formation may be thought to have occurred in the following way: heather started growing on drift-sand giving rise to a podsol layer. As the latter is impervious the vegetation surface became marshy. The heath was replaced by a Caricetum from which peat arose. Gradually more Eriophorum occurred, from which almost pure vaginatum peat arose. The bog-surface grew moister and moister, Sphagnum cuspidatum and Scheuchzeria could grow on it and formed a „Vorlaufstorf”. Only then could non-extremehydrophile Sphagna join in peat-formation. 2. the occurrence of Scheuchzeria-peat after the „Grenzhorizont” period. This species of peat, which is often found at the basis of the old Sphagnum-peat as a mesotrophic transition vegetation, has for the Netherlands only been found in the young post-glacial phase in the Peel (Deurnse Peel I Kraaienhut, Griendtsveen V and VIII and Nederweerd). At present the plant is very rare. The severe decline of this plant was also observed elsewhere. Probably it is caused by the gradual drying up or reclaiming of the raised bogs. Of the present station of Scheuchzeria near Ommen a short description has been given (p. 59 and photographs 2, 3, 4). 3. the „Grenzhorizont”. Where the young Sphagnum-peat has not been dug for the preparation of moss-litter, the Peel bogs show a clear „Grenzhorizont” (photograph 8). The conceptions about its origin have been discussed. The distinct separation between the old and the young Sphagnum-peat was not considered sufficiently explained. Though on the whole the „Grenzhorizont” is synchronous in the North-west European profiles, the point of transition from old to young Sphagnumpeat was fairly unstable and easily changeable as to time. Generally the date of the „Grenzhorizont” is fixed at about 500 A.D., though there are differences in opinion. There is a lack of archeological correlation which renders a correct dating impossible. Interference of man in the Peel Three ways of interference were stated: 1. peat has been dug off for the greater part in the territory of the Peel: young Sphagnum-peat for the preparation of moss-litter, old Sphagnum-peat for fuel. The trees which appeared when the bog was dug up in the „Veenderij der Maatschappij Griendtsveen” are sometimes in so good a condition, that they are used for building sheds. The 1 st, 2nd and 4th beam in the foreground of the shed in photo 5 has been sawn from a 30 m long subfossil pine. 2. in a native peat-digging it was possible to collect recent young Sphagnum-peat. 40 to 50 years ago the peasants living there had dug peat in holes, which were afterwards left to themselves. Sphagnum started growing again and the holes were filled in again. The diagram (fig. Griendtsveen VII) represents the surrounding heath with scattered pines and birches, sown by the wind, and a pine-plantation close by. 3. in the profiles Nieuwe Peel, Griendtsveen VI and VII it has been fixed by the indications given by Firbas, that only in the surface layers of the bog has corn-pollen occurred. So in these parts cultivation of cereals will be of recent date. This also appeared from the history of the reclamation of the said territory.

Description: E sectione Peltaea, Pavoniae speciosae H.B.K. proxima, sed forma folorium, indumento, involucri phyllis peltatis diversa. Suffrutex, caule minute stellato-piloso glabrescente, linea singula pilis simplicibus longioribus vestita in primo internodio ramulorum lateralium adaxiale notato. Folia breviter petiolata, petiolis tomentellis 2—4 mm longis, oblongo-elliptica, elliptica vel ellipticolanceolata, 3—5 cm longa, 1.25—1.5 cm lata trinervia basi acuta vel obtusa, superiora 5-nervia, basi subcordata, acutissima vel subacuminata, margine regulariter serrato-dentata, supra minute stellato-pilosa, oculo nudo glabra, infra dense sed minute stellatotomentella. Flores in axillis foliorum vel in apice ramulorum 2—3-glomeratis, bracteis ovato-triangularibus suffulti, plerumque subsessiles, interdum usque ad 4 mm pedicellati. Involucri phylla fere io linearia birta uniserialia, basi paullo connata, apice lamina foliacea peltata, id est supra basin affixa, anguste elliptica hirta, basi rotundata, apice acuta, appendiculata, 4 mm longa. Calyx cupuliformis, ultra medium incisus, 4—9 mm longus, lobis acutis hirtis, nervis trinis conspicuis, binis intermediis brevibus vel nullis. Petala 2.5—3 cm longa, teste collectore roseo-rubra, sicca rosea, basi atropurpurea. Stamina et styli more generis. Carpella 4 mm longa, mutica, dorso costa perpendiculari instructa, transverse nervosa, dense pubescentia.

Description: Culmi robusti, foliati. Folia lata, linearia, trinervia. Inflorescentia corymboso-paniculata, multispiculata. Spiculae (”spicae” multorum auctorum) parvae, multiflorae. Flores hermaphroditi (”spiculae androgynae” auctorum) perianthio utriculiformi, compresso, vix carinato, staminibus (”floribus masculinis monandris” auctorum) tribus, binis lateralibus tertio anteriore, ovario (”flore foemineo terminali nudo” auctorum) rostrato, basi angustato, haud stipitato, styli ramis ternis. Nux tri-costata, rugulosa. Generi Hypolytro L. C. Rich. proxima, a quo differt styli ramis tribus et nuce tri-costata. A Thoracostachyo et Paramapania, quibuscum stigmatum numero convenit, et structura florum et perianthio connato et nucis forma longe diversa, faciliter dignoscenda. Mapaniae potius affinis, sed ab omnibus speciebus huius generis inflorescentia a plerisque etiam perianthio connato discrepat.

Description: The genus Trymatococcus has been published in 1838 by Poeppig and Endlicher in Nova Genera ac Spec. Plant II. p. 30, and the genus was based on the species T. amazonicus. In 1876 Baillon added the species T. africanus to the genus. This gave a peculiar distribution for a genus with two species only: one in the Amazone region and one in West Africa. Later on several new species from Africa were described: three by Engler (T. kamerunianus, dorstenioides, and Conrauanus), one by De Wildeman (T. Gilletii) and one by Pellegrin (T. oligogyna). In 1922 (Archivos do Jardim Botanico Rio de Janeiro vol III. p. 22) Ducke described a second species from Amazonian Brazil (T. paraensis) and said in the notes to this new species that Lanessania turbinata Baill. should be transferred to the genus Trymatococcus and published a new combination (T. turbinatus Ducke). In 1925 (Archives IV. p. I) he emphasized his statements Trymatococcus and published a new combination (T. turbinatus as well as turbinatus and amazonicus have the stamens erect in the bud and not inflexed as was described in the former publications. He also emphasized that the place of Trymatococcus in the system has to be changed and the genus has to take the place taken up to this moment by Lanessania. Among the material of the Moraceae from Surinam which I am studying for the Flora of Surinam, I found also a Trymatococcus species. By the study of this genus I was struck by the peculiar geographic distribution of the genus, which fully supported my observations on the Euphorbiaceae (cf. Lanjouw, The Euphorbiaceae of Surinam pp. 70—84). For the preparation of a map of this distribution I studied the african species and after a careful examination I noted a number of important differences between the african species and the american ones. Part of these differences were never noticed before and no attention has ever been given to these facts. The first error in this case was made by Baillon. Most probably he had not seen T. amazonicus Poepp. et Endl. when he described his T. africanus. This is still more striking as he described in the same paper his genus Lanessania based on L. turbinata, which is a true Trymatococcus species. It is very curious that it was not possible for Baillonto observe his mistake because in his Histoire des Plantes (vol. VI. p. 199) he states „filamentis aestivatione inflexis vel nunc suberectis”. One can not understand why he did not observe that at least one of the species of Trymatococcus is the same as his genus Lanessania. After Baillon’s publication, we could say that we had got two type species, one american (Tr. amazonicus Poepp. et Endl.) and one african (Tr. africanus Baill.). Apparently Engler did not study exactly Tr. amazonicus Poepp. et Endl. when he described his new species though he states (Monogr. Afr. Pfl. fam. I. Morac. p. 28); ”Ein besonders auffallender Unterschied im Bau der Blüte und Frucht is nicht zu constatieren; bei der amerikanischen Art sind die männlichen Blüten dreimännig mit dreiteiliger Blütenhülle, bei den afrikanischen Arten sind sie zweimännig”. Likewise Ducke knew apparently only the american species when he pointed out the new place for this genus in the family. By these reasons only it is explained how confusion has crept into this genus. I have studied many specimens of Trymatococcus from the following herbaria: Berlin-Dahlem, British Museum (Natural History Museum), Kew, Leiden, Paris and Utrecht. I wish to express mv sincere thanks to the directors for their hospitality or fore sending the material on loan.

Description: Es handelt sich hier um ein grosses, zusammenhängendes Hochmoorgebiet, das sich nord-süd über 20 km, ost-west über 10 km ausdehnt. Im Süden und Westen ist es grösstenteils abgetorft. Die besonders im Zentrum und Osten noch erhaltenen Teile sind durch die intensive Trockenlegung meist verheidet; stellenweise, so in den „Engbertsdijkvenen”, wo grosse Flächen heute wenig entwässert sind, findet sich eine lebende Sphagnumdecke (Taf. III). (Lit. 5). Das Moor liegt auf pleistozänem Untergrunde (Fluvioglazial der Riss-Eiszeit und Niederterrasse der Würmeiszeit); im Osten und Westen stosst es an diluviale Rücken; im Nordwesten bildet die Niederterrasse der Vechte die Grenze. Im Südosten und Osten schliesst sich eine ausgedehnte Versumpfungszone an, während sich im Westen zwischen den Hügeln isolierte, ähnliche Bildungen vorfinden. Es handelt sich hier wahrscheinlich um ein Entwässerungsgebiet des Hochmoores. Ein prae-rissglazialer mit nördlichen Erratica bestreuter Rücken dringt vom Osten her, parallel dem Vechtetal, ungefähr bis in die Mitte, in das Moor vor. Für eine ausführliche Angabe der geologischen Verhältnisse verweisen wir auf die „Geologische Kaart van Nederland” vom „Rijks Geologische Dienst” (Blätter Almeloo I und II; Koevorden III und IV). Wir sammelten eine Anzahl Probenreihen. Die angeführten Analysen beziehen sich auf eine süd-nord gerichtete Profillinie im östlichen Teil des Gebietes (Paterswal 1 u. 2, Engbertsdijk, Bruine Haar) und ein Punktprofil im Nordwesten (Boerendijk), nahe dem Vechtetal.

Description: It is to be hoped, that the genus Pandanophyllum Hassk. never will revive, for it is based on a bad generic description and two nomina nuda, P. palustre Hassk. (Harassas tjaai) and P. humile Hassk., the first of which is supposed to indicate Mapania palustris (Steud.) Vill., while the other name has brought about much confusion, as it has been used for Hypolytrum humile (Steud.) Boeck. as well as for Mapania humilis (Miq., partly) Vill. The first validly published description of Pandanophyllum humile Hassk. nomen nudum in Cat. Pl. Hort. Bot. Bog. 1844, p. 297 has been given by Steudel in his Synopsis II (1855), p. 134 and is based upon a specimen collected in Java by Zollinger (n. 1511, Brit. Mus., Paris), belonging to the genus Hypolytrum. So this is the type-specimen of H. humile (Steud.) Boeck. in Linnaea XXXVII (1871—1873), p. 128. Bentham and Hooker, however, accepting the interpretation of Kurz in Journ. As. Soc. of Bengal XXXVIII, part 2 (1869), p. 82 and the revised opinion of Miquel in his Ill. Fl. Arch. Ind. (1871), p. 61, included both species in their section Pandanophyllum of Mapania (Gen. Pl. III, 1883, p. 1056). A quarter of a century later C. B. Clarke divided Benth. and Hooker’s section into two subgenera, viz. Pandanophyllum, including Mapania humilis Vill. and Halostemma (Wall.), including Mapania palustris (Steud.) Vill. Consequently our present section Pandanophyllum sensu Clarke probably excludes both species, which originally belonged to it. One might be inclined to rectify the mistake by changing the name of Halostemma into Pandanophyllum and coining a new name for the other subgenus, but the principal difficulty, caused by the ambiguity of Hasskarl’s generic description can not be solved in this manner. This description calls for a bifid style (perhaps referring to Hypolytrum humile Boeck.) and 3—5 spikelets (not appropriate to Mapania palustris Vill., highly improbable as to Mapania humilis Vill. and Hypolytrum humile Boeck.). The only way out of the difficulty is to reject the name Pandanophyllum as a nomen dubium in the sense of the rules of nomenclature (art. 63) and to rename the subgenus Pandanophyllum Benth. et Hook., sensu Clarke. I propose the name Pandanoscirpus.

Description: As Prof. Bremekamp has dealt with the genus Pleiocraterium from the taxonomic point of view, I intend to supplement his exposition here with some observations on the ecology of these remarkable additions to the Malaysian mountain flora. Some of these observations have been included already in a general report on the results of the Losir expedition published in Dutch. As a further illustration I am giving two photographs taken from one of the two Sumatran species in its natural habitat. Altitude. Both species were found on the highest parts of the mountains only, viz. Pl. gentianifolium just below the summit of Mt Goh Lembuh, and Pl. sumatranum between our camp at the base of the central Peak of Mt Losir at c. 3250 m. and the summit of the latter at 3460 m. These two mountains lie rather far apart: Mt Losir is the highest top of the Barisan Range proper, whereas Mt Goh Lembuh is a more isolated mountain, rising c. 50 km. NNE of Mt Losir and separated from the latter by a wide depression. The two mountains also differ geologically.

Description: La forme est le phénomène de la vie le plus important. Aussi on pourrait croire que toute étude biologique devait commencer par la forme. En effet aucune fonction n’est imaginable indépendante de la forme, tandis qu’on peut étudier la forme indépendemment de la fonction, par exemple à des objets morts. Cependant depuis Sachs le botaniste moderne est tellement possédé par les conceptions matérialistes et mécaniques, qu’il veut aussi expliquer causalement les formes organiques en oubliant que, même si toutes les formes sont matérielles, cela ne veut pas nécessairement dire que les lois physiques et chimiques qui dominent la matière sont capables d’expliquer la forme, c.à.d. l’organisation des êtres vivants. A l’aide de briques on peut bâtir des bâtiments les plus divers, mais on peut aussi bien construire ces mêmes bâtiments de bois ou de pierre naturelle: le matériel employé n’explique pas le projet de l’architecte. Ce n’est qu’en le contemplant et en le comparant à d’autres qu’on arrive à mieux le comprendre (von Veh, p. 139). La forme („type” ou „idée” dans la conception platonique) est indépendante de la matière. Elle est ce qui reste. C’est par la forme que passe le courant de la cause et de l’effet, comme l’eau passe par un endroit clair d’une rivière (Carus). La forme présente un des problèmes les plus difficiles de la biologie. Le physiologue et le morphologue (deux extrêmes psychologiques) commencent pour ainsi dire aux deux extrémités de la nature, chacun à sa manière (Troll, Meyer), l’un avec sa méthode physique et chimique, l’autre avec sa méthode comparative. Au domaine du premier appartient tout ce qui est dynamique: le métabolisme et la croissance, au domaine du second ce qui est statique: la forme. Que la feuille est la partie principale de la plante, sur cela les physiologues et les morphologues sont d’accord. Le premier la considère comme un organe qui a pour fonctions principales la CO2-assimilation et l’évaporation. Depuis Goethe le second considère tous les appendices de la tige, aussi bien les sépales que les pétales ainsi que les organes sexuels comme des feuilles métamorphosées. Même, sous l’impression de la phyllotaxie des frères Bravais, Nees d’Esenbeck croyait que „la plante n’est rien d’autre qu’une unité de feuilles reliées entre-elles par un ordre défini”. C’est pourquoi on peut aisément considérer la morphologie de la feuille comme le problème central de toute la morphologie. Il est intéressant de se rendre compte comment dans le courant des temps on a essayé d’approcher ce problème de divers côtés. Cela pourrait apporter quelque lumière sur les différentes tendances de l’étude scientifique et sur les manières de penser qui sont caractéristiques pour les différentes périodes.

Description: Notwithstanding the large amount of work spent by several botanists on this family, taxonomy does not appear very satisfactory, and a general agreement on generic limits has not yet been reached. The result has been a perplexing number of generic and sectional names. The present author apologizes for his adding to the number of interpretations. This study of American Sapotaceae, primarily undertaken in connection with the Flora of Surinam, could not have been completed without the generous loan of specimens by the herbaria at Brussels [B], Berlin—Dahlem [D], Kew [K], and Leyden [L]. In 1934 the author paid a short visit to the herbaria at Brussels [B] and at Paris [P]. The collections of this family at Paris are of special interest owing to the fact that they contain the material studied by Baillon, Pierre and Dubard, and bear numerous notes and analytical drawings, especially by Pierre, attached to the sheets. A number of British Guiana Sapotaceae from the Kew Herbarium was received for determination shortly afterwards. The author feels greatly indebted to the directors of the above mentioned Herbaria for their kind help, and particularly to Prof. Dr. A. Pulle, Utrecht, under whose direction this study was undertaken.

Description: The genus Pausandra Radlk. belongs to the Tribe Cluytieae of the Euphorbiaceae. It was described by Radlkofer in 1870 in Flora LIII pp. 79—95. The genus is based on Thouinia Morisiana of Casaretto. In his paper Radlkofer discussed at length that this species does not belong to the Sapindaceous genus Thouinia, but represents a new genus of the Euphorbiaceae. As at that time female flowers were unknown Radlkofer stated that the systematic position of the new genus was still doubtful, but that most probably it should belong to a new subtribe of the Jatropheae. Two new species were described in the genus in 1873 by Baillon, P. Trianae Baill. based on Pogonophora Trianae Müll. Arg. which was published in 1864, and P. Martinii Baill. based on very young material and erroneously described by Baillon as being 3-merous, as will be discussed below. He placed the genus in the affinity of Argithamnia Sw., which is certainly not right as this genus is quite different both in habit and in flowercharacters. A fourth species was added by Müller Arg. in 1874 in Flora Brasiliensis XI. II., where he inserted the genus in the same group as was suggested by Radlkofer. No more species had been described when Pax published in 1911 his monograph of the Tribe Cluytieae Pax in Engler, Das Pflanzenreich IV. 147. III. He inserted the genus Pausandra Radlk, with the genera Givotia Griff, and Ricinodendron Müll. Arg. in a new subtribe Ricinodendrinae Pax. I think that this is the right position for the genus, though it could be placed in a separate subtribe for its penninerved, glanduliferous leaves and the capsular fruits. It was a pity that Pax published this monograph without studying the original material. He now copied Baillon’s bad descriptions and the lack of a thorough study on the genus caused the publication of several superfluous species in recent years. P. quadriglandulosa Pax et K. Hoffm. and P. extorris Standley described in 1919 and 1929 are the same as P. Trianae (Müll. Arg.) Baill. P. flagellorhachis Lanj. is identic with P. Martinii Baill., while it was proved that the latter species is not trimerous. P. integrifolia Lanj. could not be maintained in the genus. Only the two new species published by Ducke in 1925 were truly new ones. Moreover three new species were recognized in the recent collections made by Krukoff in Brazil. It is for all these reasons that it seemed to me highly desirable to give a new treatment of this genus. Perhaps several of the old and new species can be united, as one can find often only small differences, but for the present I think it advisable to keep them separate. Pausandra Radlk, has been described to be dioecious, but recently it has been proved in some species that they are monoecious, so it is probable that most of them are under special cicumstances.

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: Recent study of the copious material of Melastomaceae conserved in the Botanisch Museum en Herbarium at Utrecht has shown the existence of several undescribed species in Surinam and has given new ideas on the taxonomic status of a few other species. These results are presented below, in advance of the treatment of the family in the „Flora of Surinam”. Ernestia Pullei Gleason, sp. nov. Suffruticosa 4 dm. alta. Caulis purpureo-brunneus 4-angulatus dense glanduloso-pubescens, internodiis 10—15 mm. longis. Petioli graciles 5—10 mm. longi glanduloso-villosi. Laminae tenues ovatae usque ad 25 mm. longae 17 mm. latae acutae minutissime serrulatae basi cordulatae 5-nerviae, supra sparse minuteque glanduloso-pilosae, subtus dense cinereo-tomentellae. Paniculae magnae terminales ramosae 8—12 cm. longae multiflorae glanduloso-polisae, bracteis minimis oblongis. Florum 4- merorum non bene conservatorum structura difficiliter et fortasse non rite observanda. Hypanthium tubuloso-campanulatum 8-costatum dense glanduloso-pilosum. Sepala erecta triangularia acuta sparse glandulosa 1.6 mm. longa. Petala non visa. Stamina valde dimorpha. Filamenta glabra erecta gracilia 3-7 mm. longa. Antherae lineari-subulatae, staminum episepalorum horizontales 4.2 mm. longae, connectivo subtereti in semicirculum 1.5 mm. diam. curvato et supra insertionem filamenti in appendices 2 V-forme connatas dilatato, ad angulam externam appendicum inserto; appendicibus in angulo interno ad filamentum affixis, triangulari-subulatis 3.2 mm. longis, infra filamentum attenuatis in calcaria filiformia et interdum calcaribus similibus lateralibus 1 vel 2 ornatis; antherae staminum epipetalorum erectae 3.3 mm. longae, connectivo ad angulam 90° deflexo 1 mm. longo, infra insertionem filamenti calcaria 2 lineari-subulata erecta 1.7 mm. longa gerente. Ovarium superum, teste cl. Pulle in schedis 3-loculare, sed in uno dissecto distinctissime 4-loculare; stylo stigmateque non visis; seminibus cochleatis.

Description: Some months ago the first author published in his Studies in Moraceae II (Rec. trav. bot. néerl. XXXIII, 1936, pp. 254—276) a synopsis of the genus Clarisia R. & P. The second author traced in the Berlin Herbarium a specimen of this genus which had been described in 1821 as Excoecaria ilicifolia Spreng. As this species is identic with Clarisia strepitans (Fr. Allem.) Lanj., the name of the latter species has to be changed. As in addition some interesting specimens were kindly sent to Utrecht for determination by the Herbaria at Berlin-Dahlem (D), Geneva (G) and the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain (A), it seemed desirable to publish these notes.

Description: Endlicheria Nees (non Presl) in Linnaea 8 (1833), p. 37; id., Progr. (1833), p. 16; id., Syst. (1836), p. 365; Endl., Gen. (1837), p. 321; id., Ench. (1841), p. 197; Dietrich, Synops. Pl. 2 (1840), p. 1332, 1350; Spach, Hist. nat. Végét. X (1841), p. 473; Steudel, Nomencl. ed. 2 (1841), p. 554; Meissn., Gen. I (1836—43), p. 326, II, p. 238; Orbigny, Dict. univ. (1846), p. 259; Lindl., Veg. kgd. (1846), p. 537; Meissn. in D.C., Prodr. XV, 1 (1864), p. 172; id. in Fl. Bras. V, 2 (1866), p. 281; Baillon, Hist. II (1870), p. 480 in adnot.; Pfeiffer, Nomencl. (1873), p. 1201; Benth. in Benth. & Hook., Gen. III (1880), p. 153; Durand, Index Gen. (1888), p. 348 sub Aydendron; Mez in Jahrb. Bot. Gart. Berl. V (1889), p. 111; Pax in Engl.-Prantl, Pfl. Fam. III, 2 (1889), p. 122; dalla Torre & Harms, Gen. (1900—07), p. 178 sub Aniba; Post & Kuntze, Lexicon (1904), p. 197; Lemée, Dict. 2 (1929), p. 857; Benoist in Arch. Bot. V (1931), p. 63; Kostermans in Meded. Bot. Mus. Utrecht 25 (1936), p. 41; id. in Pulle, F1. Surin. 2 (1936), p. 327. – Goeppertia Nees, Syst, l.c., p. 354, 365 (non alibi nec aliis); Endl., Gen., l.c., p. 321, n. 2051; id., Ench., l.c., p. 197; Dietrich, l.c., p. 1332, 1350; Spach., l.c., p. 473; Steudel, l.c., p. 697; Reichb., Nomencl. (1861), p. 70, n. 2659; Meissn., Gen. I, p. 326, II, p. 238; Orbigny, l.c., p. 259; Lindl., l.c., p. 537; Meissn. in D.C., l.c., p. 172; id. in Fl. Bras., l.c., p. 281; Baillon, l.c., p. 480; Pfeiffer, l.c., p. 1473; Benth., l.c., p. 153; Durand, l.c., p. 348 sub Aydendron; Mez, l.c.; Pax, l.c., p. 122; dalla Torre & Harms, l.c., p. 178 sub Aniba; Post & Kuntze, l.c., p. 253; Kosterm. in Meded., l.c. – Schauera Nees in Lindley, Nat. Syst. ed. 2 (1836), p. 202 in adnot. (non aliis nec alibi); Endl., l.c., p. 321; id., Ench., p. 197; Meissn., Gen. II, l.c., p. 238; Orbigny, l.c., p. 259; Lindl., Veg. kgd., l.c., p. 537; Benth., l.c., p. 153; Durand, l.c., p. 348 sub Aydendron; Mez, l.c.; Pfeiffer, l.c., p. 1071; dalla Torre & Harms, l.c., p. 178 sub Aniba; Post & Kuntze, l.c., p. 503; Lemée, l.c., p. 1006. – Schaueria Nees ex Meissn. in D.C., l.c., p. 172; id. in Fl. Bras., l.c., p. 281 (non aliis); Baillon, l.c., p. 480; Pax, l.c., p. 122. – Ampelodaphne Meissn. in D.C., l.c., p. 81; id. in Fl. Bras, l.c., p. 167; Baillon, l.c., p. 473; Pfeiffer, l.c., p. 1071; Benth., l.c., p. 153; Durand, l.c., p. 348 sub Aydendron; Pax, l.c., p. 122; dalla Torre & Harms, l.c., p. 178 n. 2812; Post & Kuntze, l.c., p. 24; Lemée, Dict., l.c., p. 210; Kosterm. in Meded., l.c. – Aydendron Griseb. (non Nees), p.p. in Fl. Brit. W. Ind. isl. (1860), p. 284; Benth., l.c., p. 153; Mez, l.c. – Huberodaphne Ducke in Arch. Jard. Rio de Janeiro 4 (1925), p. 191; Lemèe, Dict., l.c., 3 (1931), p. 661. Type species: Endlicheria hirsuta Nees.

Description: Nooit zal ik die Donderdagmorgen 10 Augustus 1944 vergeten, toen ik op het laboratorium hoorde dat in de krant — wie las dat vod nog in die tijd — stond dat UITTIEN gefusilleerd was. Het drong eerst niet goed tot mij door. Het kon niet waar zijn. De krant werd gehaald. Ja, daar stond zijn naam in een lange lijst van lotgenoten en het verschrikkelijke, het onherroepelijke, begon langzaam tot mij door te dringen. Koud en gevoelloos stond daar het bericht, van een leugenachtige argumentatie voorzien, dat men ook UITTIEN, die zachtmoedige, gevoelige, intelligente man, had vermoord. Woorden waren hiervoor op dat moment niet te vinden. Ik had alleen behoefte zijn oudste zuster, waaraan hij zeer gehecht was, op te zoeken. Door de slechte treinverbindingen kon ik eerst de volgende dag naar Brummen. Daar trof ik een diep verslagen kring van familie en vrienden van UITTIEN. Wij konden het ons nog zo moeilijk realiseren dat wij hem niet weer zouden zien. Eerst nu wij hem voor goed verloren hadden beseften wij in volle omvang hoe groot wel de plaats was die hij in ons aller leven innam. Van nature had UITTIEN weinig belangstelling voor politiek. Hij vond dat hij daar niets van wist en er dus ook niet aan mee behoefde te doen. Hij had dan ook de gewoonte zijn stembiljet blanco, ja zelfs zonder het open te vouwen, weer meteen in de bus te laten glijden, zeer tot ongenoegen van de partij-mannen die bij een dergelijke gelegenheid op het stembureau plegen te zitten. Wel was hij met hart en ziel het Koninklijk Huis toegedaan. Later heeft hij zijn blanco stemmerij opgegeven, daar het hem duidelijk was dat hij op die manier ongewild toch wel eens de door hem toen reeds verafschuwde N.S.B. zou kunnen steunen. De gang van zaken in Duitsland opende hem de ogen en reeds voor de oorlog liet hij zijn antinazi instelling duidelijk blijken. Zo zond hij na de overval van de Duitsers op Tsjecho-Slowakije een paar overdrukjes aan een botanicus in dat land met op het adres: .... Tsjecho-Slovakia, temporarily occupied by Germany. Dit had tot zijn intens genoegen een geheel onverwacht gevolg, n.1. een stroom van overdrukjes van allerlei Tsjechische botanici waarvan hij nog nooit gehoord had. Na de overval op ons land, het bombardement van Rotterdam, dat diepe indruk op hem maakte, en de daarop volgende bezetting, was UITTIEN dan ook een felle tegenstander van Duitsers en N.S.B.ers. Hij uitte dat waar hij kon in woord en daad. Op de Middelbare Koloniale Landbouwschool te Deventer waar hij leraar was, leidde dat tot wrijvingen met een N.S.B.-collega, die alles aan zijn Duitse meesters rapporteerde. Op 31 Aug. 1941, de verjaardag van H.M. de Koningin, kwam het tot een ernstige, maar niet onvermakelijke botsing met de Deventer zwarthemden, vanwege het feit dat hij binnenshuis met een oranjedas rondliep. Zijn huis aan de Dahliastraat werd door de N.S.B.ers belegerd, hetgeen een grote volksoploop en kloppartij tot gevolg had. Korte tijd daarna werd hij wegens dit feit en zijn „tartende” houding tegen de N.S.B.-collega ontslagen. Daar het departement een gunstige wachtgeldregeling maakte was dit geheel tot zijn genoegen. Sindsdien toch kon UITTIEN zich met nog meer energie wijden aan de taak, die hij zich ten bate van de oorlogvoering gesteld had, nl. het bijhouden van een uitvoerig dagboek en het verspreiden van door de radio opgevangen nieuwsberichten en van illegaal uitgegeven geschriften. Het is buitengewoon jammer dat dit dagboek in de laatste oorlogsmaanden door brand verloren is gegaan. Zijn folkloristische neigingen kwamen hem bij het samenstellen van dit dagboek goed van pas. Dagelijks tekende hij alles aan wat hij hoorde. Elk nieuwtje, elk gerucht, elke anecdote, met nauwkeurige opgave van plaats, tijd enz. Hoewel dus alles door elkaar kwam te staan, nl. alleen in de volgorde zoals hij de berichten kreeg, was het toch een verhaal dat men met spanning zat te lezen. Dat kwam natuurlijk ook vooral door de originele wijze waarop hij het gehoorde op schrift stelde. Zijn dagboek zou ongetwijfeld voor de geschiedschrijving van deze jaren van belang zijn geweest. Hoe ver zijn medewerking aan de illegale bladen zich uitstrekte, kan ik niet zeggen, daar hij dat begrijpelijk ook voor zijn familie en naaste vrienden verborgen hield. Wellicht heeft hij wel eens iets in deze bladen geschreven, maar zijn voornaamste medewerking was zeker de verspreiding. Op 29 Januari 1944 werd hij, op grond van verdenking van medewerking aan de verspreiding van „Trouw”, gearresteerd en naar het concentratiekamp Vught overgebracht. Voor zover wij wisten was er echter geen enkel positief bewijs tegen hem. Dat was dan ook waarschijnlijk de reden dat hij zelf dacht vrij te komen. De weinige brieven die hij uit zijn gevangenschap mocht schrijven waren merendeels opgewekt en getuigden van zijn onvergankelijke gevoel voor humor. Helaas werden zijn optimistische gedachten, geuit in zijn laatste brief, niet tot werkelijkheid. Hij schreef daarin dat hij nu wel spoedig dacht thuis te komen. In plaats daarvan werd echter zijn groep plotseling voor een standgerecht gebracht, en niet voor een gewone militaire rechtbank waarop zij recht hadden. De zaken gingen voor de Duitsers in die dagen slecht. De Amerikanen en Engelsen waren in het Westen doorgebroken. Vermoedelijk is er uit Berlijn een bericht gekomen, dat maar weer eens een voorbeeld moest worden gesteld om de schrik erin te houden. Zo werden deze mensen zonder dat iemand iets van de gang van zaken afwist ter dood veroordeeld en gefusilleerd. Weer was op een misdadige wijze met verkrachting van elk begrip van humaniteit en rechtsgevoel, aan 23 landgenoten het leven ontnomen, rouw en verbeten woede achterlatend.

Description: Anaueria Kosterm. in Chronica Botanica IV, 1 (1938), p. 14. Arbores brasilienses foliis sub-oppositis. Flores hermaphroditi ex-involucrati paniculati; tepalis sex tribus exterioribus minoribus. Stamina novem quorum sex exteriora fertilia filamentis in annulum ovarium cingentem connatis antheris liberis bilocellatis sub-introrsis; tria interiora sterilia staminodialia sub-aequilonga. Ovarium subglobosum tubo planiusculo insertum, stylo obtuso brevi stigmate inconspicuo. Staminodia seriei quartae nulla. Bacca magna ellipsoidea pedicello vix elongate cylindrico tepalis non incrassatis persistentibus insidens.

Description: Zu meiner Bearbeitung des surinamischen Materials der Gentianaceae für die von Pulle herausgegebene „Flora of Surinam” gehören nog einige kritische Bemerkungen. Ich muszte z.B. in einigen Fällen von der von Gilg in Engler und Prantl, Nat. Pflanzenfamilien gegebenen Einteilung der Gattungen und deren Umgrenzung abweichen. Auch stellte es sich heraus, dasz sich unter dem Material eine neue Art befand, deren Beschreibung und Abbildung unten folgen.

Description: Juniperus macropoda Boiss. Fl. Orient. V (1884) p. 709; Hooker Fl. Br. Ind. V (1890) p. 647. Umlung (Thalam-buti valley) 4200 m, 28 July no. 58. Big shrubs.

Description: De in deze Jubileumserie van de „Mededeelingen van het Botanisch Museum en Herbarium te Utrecht” opgenomen artikelen zijn door de schrijvers ingezonden om Prof. Pulle, ter gelegenheid van zijn zilveren jubileum als hoogleeraar, hun waardeering te toonen. Een kort woord over den jubilaris moge hier als inleiding van deze bijdragen volgen. Op 10 Januari 1878, op den dag dat in verschillende plaatsen den Ioosten sterfdag van Linnaeus werd herdacht, werd August Adriaan Pulle te Arnhem geboren.

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.

Description: The following families are already revised and will be included in Flora Malesiana vol. 4, part 1 which is made ready for the press: Aceraceae, Actinidiaceae s.str., Alangiaceae, Ancistrocladaceae Aponogetonaceae, Burmanniaceae, Geratophyllaceae, Cochlospermaceae, Hydrocaryaceae, Juncaginaceae, Moringaceae, Myoporaceae, Nyssaceae, Philydraceae, Plumbaginaceae, Podostemonaceae Sarcospermaceae, Sphenocleaceae, Stackhkousiaceae, Styracaceae, Trigoniaceae, Zygophyllaceae.

Description: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plain, Mass. The Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. U.S. National Herbarium, Smithonian Institution, Washington, DC. New York Botanical Gardens, Bronx Park, Fordham Br.P.O., N.Y. Bot. Gardens, Ann. Arbor, Mich. University of California, Department of Botany, Berkeley, Cal. Field museum of natural History, Department of Botany, Chicago, Ill. Great Britain. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew-Surrey (except types) British Museum, Natural History, Bot. Department, Cromwell Road, London SW & Botany School, Cambridge.

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. Dr 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: Bignoniaceae. Dr van Steenis is wording on a revision of the Malaysian Bignoniaceae for Flor. Mal.. Burmanniaceae. Dr F.P. Jonker, Herbarium, & Museum voor Systematische Botanie, Lange Nieuwstraat 106, Utrecht, Holland, is preparing a new revision of the Burmanniaceae for Fl. Mal.

Description: Index Kewensis. Suppl. 10. (1936-1940). Clarendon Press, Oxford, £4/4. (1947). Check List of British vascular plants (Journ. Ecol. 33 (1946) 308-347). Nomenclature accepted by the Brit. Ecol. Soc. to uniformize the binary names used for British plants.

Description: Bakhuizen van den Brink, Jr, R.C.: Een bijdrage tot de kennis van de Melastomataceae van den Maleischen Archipel in het bijzonder van die van Nederlandsch-Indië. Thesis. Gouda 1943, VIII 31 pp. (in Dutch). Extract from the general and critical parts of the extensive study; no latin descriptions.

Description: Mr R.E. Holttum, Director of the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, who was on leave in England from July to mid-November, reported that Mr C.X. Furtado has returned to Singapore and is working on the genus Calamus as part of his revision of the Palmae of the Malay Peninsula. Mr Holttum ’aims at getting a revised Flora of the Malay Peninsula written, of which he himself will be responsible for most of the Monocotyledones except Aroids and Palms. Mr M.R. Henderson is working on some families of Dicotyledones. This Flora must be fuller than Ridley’s, and with sufficient introductory matter and illustrations to make it intelligible to the ordinary resident who is prepared to take soms interest in local plants’. Mr Holttum will retire in 1950; he will then devote his time to revise Flora Malesiana, series II, Pteridophyta. Mr Holttum spent a fortnight in Holland, in October, and discussed the contributions to Flora Malesiana which can be prepared at Singapore on the basis of mutual cooperation. Dr A.J.G.H. Kostermans has been appointed Forest Botanist in the Forest Experiment Station, Buitenzorg, Java. He has resumed his studies on the Malaysian Lauraceae.

Description: Flora of Java. Dr C.A. Backer has been working towards the composition of a Dutch-written Flora of Java since about 1903, at first in Java, and onwards of 1931 in Holland. When the war started it was thought safer to mimeograph the MS. as far as it was finished, in order to save the writers’ labours against the chance of complete destruction by bombing or other causes. Prof. Dr H.J. Lam managed to get a number of subscribers and funds for a mimeograph edition. This constitures the ”Nooduitgave” (emergency edition) in which up till now 120 families have appeared in 7 folio volumes. The edition was limited to ca 25 copies. It is the intention to edit 2 volumes more, and then stop it. Circumstances necessitate the printed edition to be written in English to which the author has now consented, and which he will manage himself, Prof. Lam also succeeded in getting a number of temporary cooperators who have assisted Dr Backer in revising some families, viz. Dr A.D.J. Meeuse, A.G.L. Adelbert, and R.C. Bakhuizen van den Brink Jr, whilst the specialists Dr J. Wasscher, Dr S.J. van Ooststroom and Miss Dr G.J.H. Amshoff and the late Prof. Dr B.H. Danser made contributions. She revisions are now nearing completion. Only very few families, mostly sympetalous, are not yet finished. The flora will include the Pteridophytes (more than 500 in Java) and through the consent of Mrs Smith also the Orchidaceae (ca 700!); the latter will be revised on the basis of the MS. revision left by the late Dr J.J. Smith. In the emergency edition practically all synonyms have been omitted for brevity’s sake. It is to be hoped that they will be re-inserted in the scientific edition now aimed at. Endless labours have been spent in identifying the species described under various names, and to a certain extent these synonyms have shaped the specific delimitations and argumentate the present conceptions. They can be omitted in a concise popular flora, but not in the work now prepared. It has taken a long way to reach the present state to account for the flora of Java, but we are sure that the work will certainly be the most valuable contribution towards the flora of Java ever made, as its author possesses an unsurpassed field knowledge combined with a very critical taxonomical point of view.

Description: We are glad to be able to add to the list of herbaria which have agreed to send on loan herbarium specimens to collaborators of the Flora Malesiana: Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Sandakan, British North Borneo. Mr H.G. Keith, Conservator of Forests is in charge. Herbarium of the Forestry Department, Lae, Territory of New Guinea. Mr J.S. Womersley, Forest Botanist, is in charge (see p. 61).

Description: Dr C.A. Backer is now preparing the MS. on the Orchidaceae for the Flora of Java on the basis of a MS. by the late Dr J.J. Smith. Mr J. Monachino has finished his revision of the genus Alstonia (Apoc.); it is expected to be published early in 1949 in ”Pacific Science”, Hawaii.

Description: It is a great pleasure to announce that the technical difficulties delaying the printing of Flora Malesiana have now been overcome. The first part of volume 4 is in the press and, in all probability, will appear towards the end of this year. Sample sheets of volumes 1, 2, and 3 will be added to the initial instalment of volume 4. Owing to a generous grant by the Netherlands Indies Government of this first issue of the 4th vol. 2500 copies will be printed and distributed to all individual botanists and institutions which are believed to have an interest in the Flora, in order to enable them to form an idea of the scope, execution, and costs of subscription of the work. Those receiving this Bulletin will also receive the initial part. It is expected that volume 1 – which will be issued as one whole – will be in print at the end of this year.

Description: Prom Dr Y. TSIANG, now residing at the Bot. Institute, Sun Yatsen Univ., 30 Fat-Ching Road, Canton, China, we received a set of three volumes published during World War II, all prepared by G. Masumune. They are the following: Enumeratio Phanerogamarum Bornearum. 739 pp. (1942) 1) An attempt to give a revised edition of MERRILL’s Enumeration of 1921. The Introduction and notes under the species are in Japanese characters. The number of genera recorded is 1310, the number of species 7201. Pamilies are arranged in a systematic sequence; an index to family and genus names concludes the volume. In some cases, new combinations are made, e.g. by reduction of Rigiolepis to Vaccinium (Eric.), further in Hanguana, Porterandia, & c. The work has been done rather uncritical: e.g. Styrax agrestis and St. serrulatus are both entered, though ithas been shown that the Bornean record of the latter is wrong and must be replaced by the former species. Peliosanthes albida is both mentioned under Liliacease and Haemodoraceae; Aletris foliolosa is mentioned in Aletris, but A. rigida is entered in Meta-aletris though the two are difficult to distinguish. Nomenclature is not up to date (see Chloranthus, Trema, & c.). A large number of important publications on the Flora of Borneo pubished posterior to 1921 are neglected. The author has apparently far underrated the difficulties in composing a cyclopedia. The latin-written text is full of errors.

Description: ( (Report in the ”Gardens’ Bulletin, Singapore”, vol. XI, pt 4, 1947). Prior to the Japanese attack on Malaya, most of the senior staff of the Gardens were seconded for other duties under the Department of Food Control and Information, for at least part of the time. The result was that botanical work was reduced, and considerable arrears of unnamed and undistributed specimens accumulated. The Gardens were maintained as usual, with the addition of demonstration plots of vegetables.

Description: In 1826 REINWARDT published in ”Sylloge Plantarum” &c, vol. 2, pp. 1-15 under the title ”Nova plantarum indicarum genera” an article containing descriptions of some Malaysian genera of phanerogams. Amongst them is described on pag 1: Angiopetalum punctatum Reinw. n.g.n.sp. from Java. Though assigned to the Myrsinaceae by DALIA TORRE & HARMS this genus has hitherto remained obscure, and has not even been mentioned by MIQUEL. However, there is a name Allopetalum punctatum REINW. mentioned by SCHEFFER (De Myrsin. 1967, 93) as a MS. name in the synonymy of Ardisia pumila BL., also mentioned by MEZ (Pfl. Reich 9 (1902) 171) for that plant, which is now commonly known as Labisia pumila (BL.) B. & H. The type specimens of Allopetalum punctatum REINW. at Leyden (sheets 908.133.- 614 and 903.255 – 190) are undoubtedly the type specimens of Angiopetalum punctatum REINW. The name under which this species was published differs from that found in REINWARDT’s handwriting hut this is of small significance. Many name-changes occur in the materials assembled by KUHL & VAN HASSELT, ZIPPEL, REINWAKDT (and BLUME) whose herbaria were left in BLUME’s care. On the type sheet of Orescia montana REINW. in the same paper of REINWARDT’s I found on the labels the following MS. names: Lysimachia montana BL., Phaemeria montana, Rumeria montana and Lysimachia cuspidata BL, an embarrassing choice from which only the last one has been validly published. In the case of Angiopetalum, REINWARDT who had probably the herbarium not at his disposal copied the name from MS. notes, the herbarium being with BLUME either in Java or at Brussels. Later he hardly paid any attention to phytography or nomenclature.

Description: As was pointed out in the first instalment, the management of Flora Malesiana acknowledge collaborating and co-operating institutions; for this purpose a distinction was made between collaborators and co-operators. The former take an active part in the composition of the work (by revising certain families or large groups), the latter give assistance through the loan of specimens, information about collections, biblographical assistance etc.

Description: Small trees, mostly deciduous, bark gummy, wood soft, roots thickened, pungent; trunk often inflated. Leaves spread, imperfectly 2—4-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—6-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. Distr. Ca 10 spp., confined to the semi-arid countries of Somaliland, Madagascar, SW. Africa, NE. Africa, Asia Minor, 2 spp. in India.

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 herbs or shrubs, often fleshy, glabrous, papillate or hairy. Leaves opposite or alternate, exstipulate, sometimes seemingly wanting, stalked or sessile, entire, dentate-serrate-lobed or irregularly gashed. Flowers solitary, 2—3-nate or glomerate, usually sessile, either axillary or in terminal or axillary dense or interrupted spikes or panicles, ♀ or unisexual, monochlamydous, rarely achlamydous, small; bracts present or absent, usually small, rarely leafy. Perianth herbaceous or sometimes scarious, rarely (in ♀) absent, 3—5-partite with (in bud) imbricate segments, or sometimes almost entirely gamophyllous and then shortly lacerate-dentate or unilaterally cleft, persistent, after anthesis accrescent or not. Stamens often the same number as tepals and opposite to them, sometimes fewer, usually inserted on or near base of perianth; filaments free or shortly connate; anthers dorsifixed or inserted in a basal cleft, 2-celled (4-locellate); cells bursting longitudinally. Ovary free or at the base adnate to the perianth, 1-celled; ovule 1, basal, sessile and erect or suspended from a funicle; styles or stigmas 2-5, linear. Utricle either enclosed by the perianth or not, indehiscent or rarely operculate; seed erect, oblique or horizontal, usually compressed; endosperm mostly present, peripheral, surrounding the embryo; embryo annular or spirally twisted. Distr. Species numerous, inhabitants of the temperate and tropical zones of both hemispheres.

Description: Delicate, annual or perennial herbs, aquatic and then either entirely submersed, or floating in the upper part, or, in humid localities, not rarely terrestrial and creeping, with slender stems. Leaves opposite, at the summits of floating stems often spuriously rosulate, exstipulate, small, linear, elliptic, oblong or spathulate, entire, herbaceous, in the Mal. sp. triplenerved. Flowers minute, unisexual, axillary, solitary or rarely one ♂ and one ♀ flower from the same axil, often with 2 caducous, transversal, opposite, tender concave bracts. Calyx and corolla absent, ♂: Stamen 1; filament thin, anther 2-celled, cells bursting lengthwise, the slits becoming confluent at the top. ♀: Ovary sessile or subsessile, 4-lobed, 4-celled. Ovule solitary in each cell, pendulous from the top of the cavity. Styles 2, free, often long, papillose. Fruit 4-lobed, with longitudinally margined or winged lobes. Testa membranous; endosperm fleshy; embryo terete, straight. Distr. Only genus in the family, worldwide distributed, not yet known from S. Africa and in various regions scarce, in Malaysia apparently very rare, the only record proving its being indigenous is from the New Guinean highlands. Because of their small size terrestrial forms are easily overlooked.

Description: Trees (or shrubs), often deciduous, producing gum and an orange juice. Leaves spread, palmatilobed, often with domatia in the axils of the main ribs; stipules caducous. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, showy, mostly golden-yellow, paniculate or racemose. Sepals 5 imbricate. Petals 5, imbricate or contorted, emarginate. Stamens ~, with free filaments, equal or subequal; anthers 2-celled, linear, basifixed, opening by introrse, short, often confluent pore-like slits. Ovary 1-celled with laminal placentas projecting into the cell, or perfectly or imperfectly 3-celled, the upper portion remaining 1-celled; ovules ~, style simple, stigma punctiform. Capsule 3—5-valved, valves of the endocarp separating from and alternating with those of the pericarp. Seeds covered by woolly hairs, mostly cochleate-reniform; endosperm copious, rich in oil; embryo large, conforming to the shape of the seed; cotyledons broad. Distr. Ca 15 spp., mostly in trop. and subtropical America, some in trop. Africa and SE. Asia, 3 species in N. Australia, rare in Malaysia; G. gillivrayi is possibly the only native Malaysian species. LAM assumed the genus to belong to the ‘antarctic’ type(Blumea 1 (1935) 135), but it is manifestly peri-tropical.

Description: Evergreen, glabrous trees or shrubs, without resin-tubes. Leaves spread, simple, entire, more or less crowded towards the ends of the shoots, shining, exstipulate; midrib sulcate; shoots with perular terminal buds. Branches often in pseudowhorls. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes lateral, generally not exceeding the leaves. Flowers on the ultimate axis in fascicles of 3, towards the end solitary, pedicellate, bracteate. Calyx deeply 5-lobed, fleshy, persistent, petaloid, lobes inequal, concave, imbricate, 2 outermost smallest. Petals 5, thinner than the sepals, inserted at the margin of the disk-like receptacle. Stamens 5, attached to the base of the petals; filaments flattened or terete, slightly thickened towards the base; anthers dorsifixed, dehiscing lengthwise, intrors. Staminodes petaloid, dentate in the upper half, top mostly pointed, alternating with the petals. Disk glands 5, ovoid to ellipsoid, epistaminodial. Ovary ovoid, originally 2-celled, one cell soon abortive. Styles 1-2; stigma punctiform. Ovule 1, pendulous, anatropous. Fruit drupaceous, or a nut, with fibrous endocarp. Testa membranous; cotyledons planoconvex; albumen absent. Distr. Four spp., one each in New Zealand and adjacent islands, N. Caledonia, the New Hebrides, and N. Queensland & E. Malaysia.

Description: Mostly perennial, paludose, grass-like herbs with fibrous roots; stembase very rarely thickened, often profusely producing shoots. Leaves basal, distichous on each shoot, ensiform, linear or filiform, sometimes twisted; sheaths with a membranous margin (in Mal. spp.) producing mucilage (?always), with or without a short ligule; limb glabrous or with numerous, small hard papillae, sometimes with a stout nerve in either margin. Flowers ♀♂, in terminal, few- to many-flowered heads, 3-merous, yellow to white, ephemeral, each in the axil of a conspicuous bract; bracts conchate, imbricate, spirally arranged, lower ones sterile; one to few flowers simultaneously in anthesis. Peduncles scape-like, terete to compressed, sometimes winged or ribbed, glabrous or with numerous hard papillae, at the base with some sheaths provided with a short limb. Bracts entire, ciliate, fimbriate or lacerate, with one complete main nerve and some complete or incomplete longitudinal secondary (descending) nerves, in the apical part mostly with a small minutely-papillose field. Calyx zygomorphic; lateral sepals navicular, with entire, dentate or ciliate crest, wings membranous, entire, glabrous or ciliate; median sepal membranous, spathelliform or cap-shaped, enveloping the corolla, mostly obovate, 1-3(-5)-nerved, pushed out by the corolla in anthesis(?always). Corolla actinomorphic, ephemeral; petals with an orbicular to obovate limb and a long, narrow claw, free, cohering mutually or by the staminodes. Stamens mostly 3 fertile epipetalous inserted on the petals and 3 alternating staminodes, staminodes rarely absent, or all stamens fertile; filaments short; anthers basifix, dehiscing lengthwise extrorsely. Ovary superior, sessile to stipitate (in Australian spp. sometimes with 3 hard swellings at the top), 1- or 3-celled, or incompletely 3-celled. Placentas parietal, central, or basal, with ~ ovules; styles filiform, apex 3-fid, stigmas mostly capitate. Fruit shape similar to that of the ovary but larger, loculicidally 3-valved. Seeds ellipsoid to obovoid, often ribbed, with a long funicle. Distr. Xyridaceae are confined to the tropics throughout the world including the southern parts of North America; east of Malaysia and Australia hitherto only recorded from the Patau group (Korror) and New Caledonia.

Description: The Flora Malesiana is not preceded by a general key enabling one to identify any unknown native or wild plant to the family or genus to which it belongs. This is certainly a serious lack and presents a formidable handicap to inexperienced taxonomists in rapid naming current collections. However, there are several forcing arguments for omitting—at present—such an attempt which in itself would present no facile task, and could be accomplished only by a taxonomist thoroughly acquainted with the Malaysian flora. One could of course use some world key as a basis and cut out the entries leading to genera or families not represented in the Malaysian flora, but this procedure would be unsatisfactory, specially as these world keys make little use of vegetative characters; the latter appear to me very important specially in the earlier forks of the keys.

Description: Annual or perennial, unarmed or spinous, bitter herbs or undershrubs, often glandular-hairy. Stem terete, farctate, with a peripheral whorl of air-vessels. Leaves spread, simple, entire, exstipulate. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic, solitary, opposite or between the leaves, or by stunting of the leaves, more or less arranged in a racemiform or paniculiform inflorescence, distinctly pedicelled, lilac blue. Calyx persistent, 5-partite to near the base, segments lanceolate, imbricate in bud, after anthesis not or hardly accrescent. Corolla gamopetalous, deeply 5-partite; limb rotate; segments imbricate in bud, oval, obtuse. Stamens 5, free, inserted in the throat of the corolla, alternating with the segments; filaments filiform from a broadened base, glabrous or papillate; anthers 2-celled, bifid at the base and apex, opening lengthwise. Disk absent. Ovary superior, 2- (rarely 3-, very rarely more-) celled; placentas adnate to the dissepiment, spongy, entire or in cross-section bifid; styles 2 (rarely 3 or more), free; stigmas capitate-clavate. Ovules ~. Capsule globose or ellipsoid, loculicid, or both loculicid and septicid, 2(rarely more)-valved, or bursting irregularly. Seeds ~, very small, longitudinally ribbed; endosperm small, straight. Distr. Species ± 20, in the tropics of both hemispheres; in Malaysia 2, of which one indigenous, the other introduced and naturalized in Java.

Description: Rhizomes (rarely spiny) producing annual, mostly twining shoots, in Malaysia twining either to the right (fig. 4c) or the left (fig. 4a). Stems consisting of a main stem and sterile branches, both bearing leafless flowering axes. Leaves petiolate, generally cordate, simple and entire or palmately lobed, or palmately compound, except in the latter triplinerved; apex generally glandular, developed before the blade (forerunner tip); blade usually glandular on the lower side chiefly towards the base. Flowers hermaphrodite or dioecious, ♀ with staminodes, ♂ without even a rudimentary ovary, actinomorphic, 3-merous, mostly inconspicuous and greenish, ♂ often massed together and scented. Tepals in two whorls of 3. Stamens in 2 whorls of 3, the inner sometimes sterile; anthers usually introrse. Torus an urceolate, perianthoid chamber in Stenomeris, a saucer or cup in many spp. of Dioscorea, fleshy in Dioscorea § Enantiophyllum, in some spp. enlarged into a cone making the stamens appear to be connate. Style 1 with 3 bifid stigmas. Ovary 3-locular, inferior, sometimes separated from the perianth by a constriction. Ovules 2 in each cell or ~ (in Stenomeris), anatropous. Fruit a capsule, but it breaks up rather than dehisces in Trichopus. Seeds winged or wingless (in Trichopus); endosperm horny, embryo in a marginal pocket. Distr. Ca 9 genera and about 600 spp. (Dioscorea large, the other genera small or monotypic). Pantropic with considerable extensions into temperate regions. The Stenomerideae and Trichopodeae are restricted to the warm humid regions where Nepenthes grows and their geologic history must have been that of Nepenthes: they may be regarded as the survivors of the hermaphrodite ancestry of the Dioscoreeae.

Description: Herbs or shrubs, sometimes parasitic, usually with twining stems, occasionally prostrate or creeping, or erect, very rarely trees, often with milky juice. Leaves mostly spirally arranged, in parasitic species absent or nearly so, usually petioled; petiole sometimes with extra-floral nectaries. Stipules absent, pseudostipules (leaves of axillary shoot) rarely present. Inflorescences mostly cymose, one- to many-flowered, with mostly opposite or subopposite bracts at the base of the cymes or under the solitary flowers; rarely racemose. Flowers generally hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, rarely slightly zygomorphic, usually 5-merous, rarely 4-merous, various in size and colour, often showy. Sepals usually free, imbricate, with quincuncial aestivation, often persistent, sometimes accrescent in fruit. Corolla sympetalous, of various shapes, often funnel-shaped or campanulate, more rarely rotate, salver-shaped or urceolate; the limb nearly entire or more or less deeply lobed, often contorted-plicate in bud, or valvate or induplicate-valvate. Stamens isomerous, alternating with the corolla-lobes, adnate to the corolla, with usually slender, often filiform filaments and introrse or laterally and longitudinally dehiscing anthers. Pollen smooth or spinulose. Disk mostly present, annular or cupular. Ovary superior, mostly of 2 carpels, 2- or 1-celled, sometimes 4-celled by development of accessory partitions, rarely of 3 carpels and 3-celled; ovules 2 in each carpel, sessile, erect, anatropous. Style 1, often filiform, simple or forked, or 2 free styles, rarely very short or absent. Stigma entire or 2-lobed, rarely 3-lobed, or stigmas 2-4, of various shape, globular or ellipsoid to filiform, sometimes applanate, rarely peltate, kidney-shaped, conical or funnel-shaped. Fruit a capsule dehiscing by valves or circumscissile or irregularly dehiscing, rarely a berry or nut-like. Seeds as many as ovules or fewer; endosperm cartilaginous; cotyledons generally folded, sometimes obscure or absent. Distr. Ca 55 genera, with ca 1650 spp., widely distributed in the tropical, subtropical and temperate regions of both hemispheres; the greater part of the species in the tropics and subtropics of America and Asia. The larger genera Cuscuta (ca 165 spp.), Convolvulus (ca 250 spp.) and Ipomoea (ca 500 spp.) nearly throughout the range of the family but Convolvulus more in the temperate parts and Ipomoea more in the tropics and subtropics. Other large genera as Evolvulus (ca 100 spp.) and Jacquemontia (ca 120 spp.) nearly confined to America. Argyreia (ca 90 spp.) confined to tropical Asia. Malaysia, and a single sp. in Australia, and Merremia (ca 80 spp.) circumtropical. Several monotypic or small genera in E. Africa, Madagascar, and Australia.

Description: It is not without some pride and much satisfaction that the present volume, fourth planned in the series, second in sequence of publication, is brought to a successful end. Satisfaction I feel through the fact that the scheme and aim of this work is not only understood by the scientific-botanical world, but has also been accepted in the administrative world: Notwithstanding the long term scope of the work, the High Government of the Republic of Indonesia, having realized the essential value of basic scientific work in the natural sciences for the welfare of the future generations of its young nation, has been instrumental in authorizing the Director of Kebun Raya Indonesia (Botanic Gardens of Indonesia, Bogor) to create a Flora Malesiana Foundation. Sponsored by the Indonesian Government, this Foundation knits together the work and interest of the Herbarium Bogoriense of Kebun Raya Indonesia and the Netherlands Rijksherbarium at Leyden, the direction of which have officially agreed to a long-range close co-operation.

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 ♀, 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. Distr. About 8 small genera and ± 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.

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—11-foliolate. Flowers (♂) (♀) or mostly (♂♀). 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. Distr. Monotypic, native of Central Asia, cultivated in tropical Asia, naturalized in N. America.

Description: Small trees or erect shrubs. Leaves spirally arranged, simple, petioled, entire, palmatinerved, densely red-dotted. Stipules small, very caducous. Flowers in terminal corymbs or panicles, actinomorphic, ♀, rather large. Pedicel with 5-6 apical glands. Sepals 4-5, free, imbricate in bud, falling off as soon as the flower expands. Petals 4-7, free, imbricate in bud. Stamens numerous, inserted on an annular hypogynous disk; filaments thin, free; anthers horseshoe-shaped, passing over the top of the filament and with both ends closely applied to i , 2-celled; cells opening in the middle (on the top of the filament) by short slits which unite into a spuriously apical pore. Ovary superior, usually bristly, 1-celled, with 2 opposite parietal slightly intruding placentas. Style 1, sinuous, rather thick; stigma 2-dentate. Ovules very numerous. Capsule compressed contrary to the placentas, usually softly prickly, rarely smooth, loculicidally bivalved; endocarp membranous, separating from the valves. Seeds numerous, obovoid, angular; testa fleshy, very densely studded with small, round, red, sessile glands; albumen well-developed, not oil-containing; embryo rather large. Distr. Monotypic, native and cultivated in tropical America; cultivated in many other tropical countries.

Description: Annual (?)laticiferous herbs, with the habit of Phytolacca. Stem erect, somewhat succulent. Leaves spirally arranged, simple, entire, exstipulate. Inflorescences terminal, densely spicate, acropetal. Flowers subtended by a bract and two bracteoles, bisexual, actinomorphic. Calyx tube adnate to the ovary; segments 5, united below, imbricate, connivent, persistent. Corolla campanulate-urceolate, perigynous; lobes 5, imbricate. Stamens 5, epipetalous, alternating with the corolla lobes; filaments short; anthers rounded, 2-locular, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary semi-inferior, 2-locular; style short, stigma capitate; ovules attached to large spongy stipitate axile placentas. Capsule cuneate-obconic, 2-locular, membranous, circumscissile; seeds ~, minute, oblong, rugose-costate, albumen very scanty or none (?); embryo axile, straight, subterete. Distr. Mono-generic, almost pantropical.

Description: Submerged, rootless, monoecious freshwater plants. Leaves verticillate, 2-4 times forked, segments linear dentate. Flowers actinomorphic, solitary, axillary, unisexual. Perianth valvate, segments 9-12, persistent, narrow. ♂: stamens 8-24; anthers nearly sessile rather broad, connective pointed, the 2 cells mostly crowned by a minute bristle; ovary rudiment absent. ♀: ovary superior, sessile, 1-celled with 1 ovule; style persistent, subulate, sulcate towards the apex; stamen rudiments absent. Fruit oblong, compressed, warty, not dehiscent, near the base with 2 straight or curved soft spines, or unarmed. Distr. Ca 2 spp., both ubiquitous.

Description: Annual or perennial, saprophytic or autotrophic herbs; the saprophytic species often colourless. Leaves usually spread or alternate, entire, simple, without stipules; non-saprophytic species with a radical rosette of linear leaves; stem leaves often reduced to small scales; sometimes the basal part of the stem provided with many decurrent, grass-like leaves. Flowers ♀♂, usually actinomorphic, solitary or in capitate or cymose inflorescences. Perianth corolline; limb consisting of 2 whorls; tube sometimes 3-winged. Anthers 3, subsessile in the perianth throat and dehiscing laterally with horizontal slits,or 6, hanging down in the perianth tube and dehiscing with longitudinal slits. Connective large, often appendiculate. Style filiform or shortly cylindrical or conical. Stigmas 3, sometimes connate. Ovary inferior, 1-celled with parietal placentation, or 3-celled with axile placentation. Ovules ~, anatropous, with 2 integuments; funicles often rather long. Fruit usually capsular, sometimes fleshy, crowned by the persistent perianth tube and the style, or by a thickened persistent basal ring of the perianth tube, dehiscing irregularly or with transverse slits at the top. Seeds ~, small, subglobose to linear, sometimes with loose, reticulate testa, with endosperm. Distr. About 125 species, widely distributed in the tropics of both hemispheres, also in subtropical America, Chicago area, Moçambique, Southern China, Japan, Southern Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. As many species are rare, it is possible that only a part of their area is known. Most of them are found in moist regions. Among the autotrophic Malaysian Burmanniaceae there are 3 rather common species which are widely spread, viz Burmannia coelestis, B. disticha and B. longifolia. The latter two are absent from Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands, the former occurs in Java proper only in its western part. Of the saprophytic Malaysian species only 3 have been often collected, viz Burmannia championii, B. lutescens, and Gymnosiphon affinis.

Description: Trees, shrubs or lianas, rarely subherbaceous. Glands (in Mal. spp.) often present on the leaf-bases or petioles, and in lower marginal crenations. Indumentum of simple hairs, glandular hairs or multicellular hairs secreting calcium oxalate and forming scales, or present beneath the cuticle making the surface of the leaf minutely verruculose and sometimes pellucid-punctate. Leaves opposite, verticillate, spiral, or alternate, petioled (rarely sessile), exstipulate, simple, almost always entire. Flowers ♀♂ ♀♂ or ♀♂ and ♂ in the same inflorescences, usually protogynous, usually actinomorphic, rarely slightly zygomorphic, in axillary or extra-axillary elongated or subcapitate spikes or racemes or in terminal and sometimes axillary panicles. Receptacle (calyx-tube) usually in two distinct parts, the lower receptacle surrounding and adnate to the inferior ovary and the upper receptacle produced beyond to form a short or long tube terminating in the calyx-lobes, the latter sometimes poorly developed. Calyx-lobes 4 or 5 (rarely 6-8) or almost absent, sometimes accrescent ( Calycopteris). Petals 4 or 5 or absent, conspicuous or sometimes very small, inserted near the mouth of the upper receptacle. Stamens usually twice as many as the petals, borne inside the upper receptacle usually in two series, exserted or included; anthers dorsifixed, usually versatile (or rarely adnate to the filaments). Disk intrastaminal, usually present, hairy or glabrous. Style usually free (attached for part of its length to the upper receptacle in Quisqualis). Ovary inferior (semi-inferior in the West-African genus Strephonema), unilocular, with usually 2 (sometimes 2-6) pendulous, anatropous ovules of which only 1 usually developes. Fruit (botanically a pseudocarp) very variable in size and shape, fleshy or dry, usually indehiscent, often variously winged or ridged, 1-seeded. Albumen absent. Distr. 18 genera with c. 450 spp. in the tropics and subtropics: 2 are circumtropical ( Combretum and Terminalia), and are much the largest genera, 1 is confined to North Australia and Queensland (Macropteranthes), 2 confined to tropical Asia ( Finetia and Calycopteris) , 3 occur in Asia and Africa (Anogeissus, Lumnitzera, and Quisqualis), 1 is confined to Madagascar (Calopyxis), 3 are confined to tropical Africa (Guiera, Pteleopsis and Strephonema), 2 occur in tropical Africa and tropical America (Conocarpus and Laguncularia) and the remaining four ( Buchenavia, Bucida, Ramatuela and Thiloa) are confined to tropical and subtropical America.

Description: For various reasons the space occupied by pre-Linnean Malaysian phytography in this concise history seems too large and out of proportion in comparison to the survey of post-Linnean work. Modern plant description, though based on, and derived from, ancient beginnings and traditions, maintains but slender contacts with plant sciences earlier than the 18th century and it might claim to be allotted by far the larger space on account of its superior results, its greatly increased efficiency, its Consciousness of limitations and capabilities, its output, and its clearness of purpose. There exists, however, during the last decade, an increasing interest in the nearly forgotten botany of centuries long past, not only because of a certain taste for the quaint and attractive flavour of scientific efforts from minds so remote from our own, but also on account of a growing insight into the hidden springs of modern thought and method, which flow deeply, emerge unexpectedly, and appear to rise from distant roots. There is also, in connexion with this, the absorbing spectacle of discovery and of growth i.e. the development of a field of human culture that has bound devoted and excellent personalities in its service from the first glimmerings of our civilization.

Description: Scandent shrubs (often erect in youth), without resin; branches sympodial with a series of circinate woody hooks in one plane. Leaves spread, simple, entire, often rosette-crowded, cuneiform, penninervous, reticulate-veined, glabrous, both surfaces minutely pitted, each pit with a peltate small hair secreting a waxlike substance; petiole articulated, scar on the twigs often saddle-shaped; stipules absent. Flowers ♀♂, actinomorphic small. Inflor. few or several times dichotomous or spike-like, often provided with said hooks and single reduced bract-like leaves, branches often recurved. Pedicels articulated. Bracts with a glandular-thickened base, margin fimbriate-membranous. Calyx tube short, at length adnate to the base of the ovary; lobes 5 inequal imbricate, enlarged and wing-like in fruit. Petals 5, united at the base, slightly contorted in bud. Stamens mostly 10, rarely 5, the episepalous slightly longer. Filaments with broadened base; anthers basifixed, ± introrse to ± latrorse, 2-celled, opening lengthwise. Ovary for the greater part inferior, consisting of 3 carpels, 1-celled, protruding into a nippleshaped elongation bearing 3 articulated erect styles with a punctiform or horseshoe-shaped stigmatic apex; nipple enlarging in fruit. Ovule 1, basal, ascending, with 2 integuments. Nut not dehiscent, crowned by the enlarged calyx. Seed roundish with testa intruding between the cerebral-like folds of the endosperm. Exocarp leathery. Embryo straight, erect, obliquely placed; cotyledons diverging; hypocotyl rather thick. Distr. Disjunct, ca 3 spp. in trop. W. Africa, and 9 in SE. Asia, from the Deccan to Burma, Indochina, Hainan, S. China, the Malay Peninsula, Borneo and Sumatra (cf. fig. 2).

Description: Floating aquatic herbs with dimorphic leaves, submerged ones opposite pinnatifid rootlike, apical ones in a rosette, rhomboid, dentate, with spongy often inflated petiole, arranged in leaf-mosaic; stipules 4-8, minute. Flowers bisexual, small, solitary, axillary, short-pedicelled, 4-merous, white or lilac. Petals imbricate. Disk present. Ovary half-inferior with 1 style and 2-4 persistent sepals turning often to thorns or horns. Fruit mostly 1-celled, 1-seeded, shell bone-hard; thorns after withering often set with barbs at the apex. Seed often producing 2-5 free germ-stalks. Distr. Several species in the Old World, but not known from Australia.

Description: Priority of publication is internationally accepted as the basic principle of the ‘Rules of Botanical Nomenclature’. This has emphasized to a marked degree the importance of determining accurately the exact time when novelties are placed before the scientific public.

Description: Dioecious trees or shrubs. Leaves simple, scattered. Stipules O. Flowers unisexual, often in heads, in the axils of a bract and with 2 bracteoles. ♂: in axillary heads or short racemes; calyx entire or 5-toothed; petals 5, imbricate, often small, alternate with the calyx; stamens 8-16 in 2 alternating whorls; anthers small, dorsifixed with lateral lengthwise slits; disk pulvinate; style rudimentary. ♀: solitary, axillary or in 2-10-flowered heads; ovary inferior, 1-locular, connate with the 5-toothed or entire calyx; petals 5-8 often minute; stamens of inner whorl partly sterile, both petals and anthers soon dropping; style with 2 appressed later divergent often torulose branches stigmatose on their inside, brittle, often deficient in the herbarium. Ovule 1, hanging from the apex of the cell, anatropous with 2 integuments. Fruit drupaceous ovoid to oblong. Distr. Ca 6 spp., 4 in Atlantic N. America, 1 in China, 1 from India to W. Malaysia.

Description: Trees, rarely shrubs. Leaves simple, mostly glandular-punctate, exstipulate. Flowers ♀, actinomorphic, 5-merous. Calyx-tube short, tube (and usually segments) densely setulose-hairy within. Corolla represented by 7-40 deltoid to linear-subulate processes, rarely by a low entire annulus. Stamens 8-80; filaments free, short, slender; anthers hippocrepiform. Disk 0. Ovary (2-)3-5(-8)-locular; cells with one anatropous ovule pendulous from the apex. Style elongate, filiform, sometimes accompanied by ‘parastyles’ at the base; stigma small, capitate. Fruit a thick-walled, woody, dehiscent, 1—5-seeded capsule, or a thin-walled, (?) indehiscent, 1—2-seeded capsule. Seeds large, without chalazal fold, usually with aril. Endosperm 0. Distr. Almost confined to Malaysia, occurring in all parts of the archipelago except E. Java and the Lesser Sunda Isl.; found also in the Nicobar, Solomon and Fiji Islands. Genera 3. The greatest number of species is concentrated in Borneo, with apparently a marked inner centre of differentiation in the western part of the island. Fig. 1.

Description: J. J. Smith was born June 29th, 1867, at Antwerp, where his father was the director of the Netherlands’ Railway Post Office. In 1872 the family moved to Utrecht and in 1875 to Amsterdam. Smith spent his school days in the capital. His leisure hours were occupied by growing and sketching plants and tending such animals as mice and keeping an aquarium and a terrarium. His 10th birthday was celebrated by the establishment of a private herbarium, the first plant inserted being Bellis perennis. His years at secondary school were greatly influenced by the then teacher of Natural History, Dr J. C. Costerus, who advised Smith to look for a position in horticulture. Horticultural schools being not yet ”en vogue“, Smith got his education in this field at the Horticulturist’s Messrs Groenewegen & Co., Amsterdam. In these years the Orchids began to impress him and Smith spent his few free hours in making pictures of flowering species. The connection with Dr Costerus was continued. Together they looked after their herbaria and later on started to study teratologica, found in the Groenewegen gardens and greenhouses, a field in which both would publish several valuable papers later on. After having been working for his firm for 3½ years, Smith went to Kew where he stayed one year and afterwards to Brussels for completing his horticultural knowledge and skill. At Brussels he was working one year in the famous Orchid nursery of Messrs Linden, and then another year at the ”Jardin Botanique“.

Description: Pendant une tournée du chalutier ”De Lanessan“ de l’Institut Océanographique de Nhatrang (Annam) vers le récif Tizard¹) en avril 1936, une collection d’algues marines a été constituée, provenant des îlots Itu-Aba, Sand Caye et Nam Yit. La situation de ces îlots est environ 10° de latitude Nord et 114° de longitude Est. Qu’il me soit permis de remercier M. R. Serène de l’Institut Océanographique de l’Indochine à Cauda par Nhatrang, qui m’a confié l’étude de cette collection.

Description: In continuation of a previous publication by Lam, in which meiomery and pleiomery in male flowers of Canarium decumanum were described, the same phenomenon is now discussed concerning the fruits of C. Mehenbethene (176 of one single tree) and C. commune (1126 fruits mixed from more than one tree). An investigation of the material gave the following results: 1. C. commune and C. Mehenbethene are closely related; the latter may prove to be a polyploid of the former. Their areas are partly overlapping, but C. commune has its centre in the Moluccas, C. Mehenbethene in New Guinea and W. Polynesia. 2. A tendency to reduce the number of ovules and carpels in the ovary is assumed. By means of a statistical method (”phase index“) the position of either species in the phases of this regression is indicated. 3. From this, it is concluded that C. Mehenbethene represents a more advanced phase than C. commune and that therefore an eastward migration must be accepted. This agrees with other facts stated earlier, both in the Burseraceae and in other plant families of western origin. 4. In Canarium commune pleiomery is found in 2.3% of the fruits, meiomery in 0.45%, which agrees fairly well with the figures found earlier for the corolla and the androeceum of the male flowers of C. decumanum (0.9% and 0.3% respectively). 5. The desirability is expressed to investigate the following points: a. the ontogeny and the fertilization of ovaries and ovules in Canarium. b. cytological relations between related trees in the tropics, especially as far as they may supply indications towards migration tracks (cf. the work of Hagerup on Vaccinium [Hereditas 18, 1933]). c. the ”phase index“ of a number of related Canarium species. d. the exact distribution of some of the phases mentioned along those migration tracks which are both geologically and biogeographically supported (e.g. Sunda centre—Philippines, Philippines—Moluccas—New Guinea, New Guinea—Moluccas—Central Celebes, Malay Peninsula—Sumatra—Java, etc.).

Description: Most classifications of the genera of the Gramineae have been on the structure and arrangement of their spikelets, for these organs provide a far greater variety of readily distinguishing characters than do other parts of the grass plant. Nevertheless it has not always been possible to decide from morphological studies alone whether marked similarities in structure point to a close affinity or are merely examples of parallel development. The modern taxonomist, endeavouring to arrange the grass genera in as natural a sequence as possible in order to emphasise relationships and evolutionary trends, sooner or later meets with difficulties in this respect, for examples of parallelism are of common occurrence in this family. He is more fortunate, however, than his predecessors, in that his own intensive morphological studies, based on a wider range of specimens, may be supplemented by additional data gleaned from the ecological, anatomical and cytological researches of contemporary workers. Thus aided by the more complete information at his disposal, it has been possible for him to rearrange certain groups, particularly the Festuceae and Hordeeae, in which parallel development has occasionally led to unrelated genera such as Lolium, Agropyron and Nardus, being too closely associated. In the following account an attempt has been made to provide a more natural classification for about eighteen species frequently referred to the genus Lepturus R. Br. by reason of their similar spicate inflorescences.

Description: Im Jahre 1907 wurde ich als Botaniker der Gouvernements China-Plantagen in Tjinjiroean bei Pengalengan, West-Java, angestellt, wo ich bis 1916 arbeitete. Tjinjiroean liegt etwa 1566 m über dem Meere und hat ein sehr feuchtes Klima. Es war sehr interessant nachzugehen, welche aus der Ebene von Java und aus Europa eingeführten Pflanzen dort wachsen würden. Was würde der Einfluss des Klimas, der Meereshöhe, der Temperatur, u.s.w. auf die Pflanzen sein? In Tjinjiroean fand ich sogleich viele eingeführte Pflanzen, welche dort üppig wuchsen. In den Chinaplantagen fand ich Georginen und Tropaeolum majus L. verwildert; in meinem Garten blühte Richardia africana Kunth reichlich, bildete Früchte, welche wieder zahlreiche Pflanzen lieferten. Nur einige interessante Pflanzen werde ich hier weiter erwähnen.

Description: Urelytrum Henrardii Chippindall sp. nov.; ab U. agropyroidei Hack., cui e descriptione affine, culmis gracilibus, foliorum laminis non hirsutis, longe attenuatis, longioribus, racemis flavido-viridibus, spicularum sessilium gluma inferiore 5-nervi, arista breviore distinguendum — Fig. 1. Gramen perenne caespitosum, usque ad 92 cm altum. Culmi erecti, simplices, graciles, pauci-nodes, glabri, racemos versus asperuli. Folia plerumque basalia; vaginae internodiis longiores, sublaxae, striatae, apicem versus carinatae, basales glabrae laevesque, superiores pilis patulis laxe pilosae, ore villoso-barbatae; ligulae scariosae, rotundato-obtusae, 0.8—1.25 mm longae; laminae lineares, apice tenuiter setaceae, planae vel leviter conduplicatae, usque ad 38 cm longae, 3—3.8 mm latae, marginibus scabridis, costis asperulis, pone ligulam pilis longis exceptis glabrae. Racemi ad culmi apicem solitarii, stricti, fragiles, subcylindrici, fere glabri, flavidi vel pallide flavido-virides, saltem 16 cm longi; articuli rhacheos compressi, infimo usque ad 2 cm longo, scaberuli, margine uno superne rigide ciliati, appendice membranacea inaequaliter dentata ciliolata; pedicelli articulis similes, sed appendice minore. Spiculae sessiles biflorae, anguste lanceolato-oblongae, 7.5—8.2 mm longae (callo excluso); callus crassus, rotundato-obtusus, basi barbatus. Glumae subaequales, minute punctatae; inferior spiculam aequans, coriacea, marginibus hyalinis, explanata lanceolata, subconvexa, subacuta, 5-nervis, dorso apicem versus parce spinuloso-ciliata, superne bicarnata, carinis angustissime alatis, alis spinuloso-ciliatis; superior inferiore paulo brevior, firme membranacea, marginibus hyalinis apice minute ciliolata, lanceolata, acuta, 3-nervis, superne carinata, carina anguste alata, ala spinuloso-ciliata. Anthoecium inferum ♂: lemma tenuiter hyalinum, lanceolato-ovatum, 6—6.5 mm longum, 2-nerve, minute bidentatum, marginibus apicem versus minute ciliolatum; palea lemmati similis sed angustior et paulo longior; antherae 3 mm longae; lodiculae glabrae. Anthoecium superum ♀: lemma lemmati anthoecii inferi simile sed 3-nerve, apice latius; palea angustior. Spiculae pedicellatae illis sessilibus absimiles, neutrae, ad glumas lemmaque redactae, sine arista 2—2.75 mm longae. Glumae coriaceae, marginibus hyalinis superne ciliolatae, minute punctatae; inferior spiculae aequilonga, lanceolata, 5-nervis, ad carinam superne angustissime alata, ala spinulosociliata, in aristam scabridam 9—12.5 mm longam excurrente; superior inferiore paulo longior, apice integra, obtusa, superne carinata, carina anguste alata, ala spinuloso-ciliata, obscure 5-nervis. Lemma tenuiter hyalinum, parvum.

Description: According to general opinion the spikelets of Oryza consist, reckoned from their base upwards, of 2 sterile glumes, called hereafter I and II, one fertile glume (valvula inferior; lemma), called hereafter III, and the palea valvula superior) to this glume, called hereafter p3. The spikelets are placed singly on the very short ultimate branchlets, called hereafter pedicels, of a more or less strongly ramose panicle; the tips of the pedicels are broadened into a shallow infra-spicular cup, either distinctly 2-lobed or not; from the bottom of the cup arises a minute knob, on which the very distinct basal callus of the spikelet is jointed. When ripe, the spikelets of the wild species fall off as a whole, disarticulating at the joint (in dried specimens often long before maturity; hence in herbarium-specimens they are frequently lacking). In many cultivated forms they remain firmly attached to their pedicels, a property of very high economic value. The spikelets are strongly laterally compressed. I and II are either 1-nerved or nerveless; as a rule they are many times shorter than the spikelet, sometimes even very minute. Only in O. Ridleyi they are comparatively well-developed, reaching about half the length of the spikelet, but very narrow. III is very rigid, usually conspicuously granulate, boatshaped, keeled, either awned or not, 5-nerved, with a strong midrib; it has the ultimate lateral nerves along the margins. P3 is likewise boatshaped, shortly cuspidate or not, with a narrow, rather rounded, less often faintly keeled back, 3-nerved; it is about as long as III, awn disregarded, and has the same rigid granulate structure, excepted the narrowly incurved thinly membranaceous smooth marginal parts (hidden by III). It might be taken for a fertile glume, but this view is inadmissible because of the averted position of the lodicules. It has a rather thin mid-nerve and strong lateral nerves, separating the rigid central part from the membranaceous borders. The well-developed lodicules are glabrous; the six stamens are free; there are 2 free shortish styles with large plumose white or violet stigmas which, during anthesis, stick out from the sides of the spikelet in or below its middle. The ripe fruit is oblong or lanceolate, usually angular; it is free from glume and palea but remains firmly incarcerated between them.

Description: Dactyloctenium Henrardianum Bor spec. nov. quae ab omnibus aliis speciebus hujus generis inflorescentia racemosa haud digitata satis recedit. An annual grass. Culms slender, 10—30 cm tall, erect, smooth, glabrous, striate in robust specimens, terete, long-exserted from the uppermost leaf-sheath. Leaf-sheaths strongly keeled, loose, slipping from the culm, much shorter than the internode and leaf-blade, markedly striate, smooth and glabrous except for some bristles from bulbous bases sparsely arranged near the margins in the upper fourth; ligule a lacerate membrane not more than 2 mm long. Leaf-blades up to 10 cm long by 5 mm wide at the base, gradually narrowed into a fine point from the rounded base, very scabrid on the margins which also bear long bulbous-based bristles in the lower third; upper surface smooth; lower surface often with bulbous-based bristles; midrib strongly marked with 2—3 prominent parallel veins on either side.

Description: Een man, die zich nimmer op den voorgrond stelde en wiens naam toch in de geheele botanische wereld bekend is, moet wel heel wat in die wereld hebben gepresteerd. Zoo’n man is Dr J. J. Smith, die op 29 Juni 1937 zijn 70sten verjaardag viert. Zeventig jaar te worden is op zichzelf beschouwd geen verdienste, maar het geeft vrienden en vereerders zulk een mooie gelegenheid den jubilaris eens te toonen, hoe zeer men zijn werk waardeert!

Description: Het lijkt mij niet mogelijk een juisten indruk te krijgen van de beteekenis van J. J. Smith’s phytographisch werk voor den huidigen kweeker, zonder de belangrijkste phasen in de geschiedenis der Orchidophilie in Europa kort te schetsen, die aan dit werk zijn voorafgegaan. Deze geschiedenis heeft zich practisch geheel in Engeland afgespeeld. Dit machtige rijk, in zijn gouden eeuw onbetwist heerscher ter zee, had ter behartiging van zijne overzeesche belangen de beschikking over een kolossale handelsvloot. De bemanningen der schepen voerden van heinde en verre allerlei rariteiten mede, ook levende planten en dieren. Op deze wijze kwamen in de laatste helft der achttiende eeuw de eerste exotische Orchideeën binnen uit gebieden, die niet al te ver van Engeland af lagen: Jamaica, de Bahama-eilanden, Trinidad.

Description: Het is mij een bijzonder voorrecht, om uit het leven van Dr Smith eenige bijzonderheden te mogen vertellen, waarvan enkele wellicht minder algemeen bekend zijn. Deels heb ik de gegevens geput uit datgene wat van zijn levensloop bekend is, deels stammen ze uit mijn persoonlijk contact met Dr Smith, en de gelegenheid van dit jubileum lijkt mij bij uitstek geschikt om dezen te bescheiden werker in het licht te plaatsen waarin hij behoort te staan. In de beginjaren van mijn loopbaan als Hortulanus van ’s Lands Plantentuin was Dr Smith voor mij de groote vraagbaak, was hij de man die met zijn groote liefde voor en zijn uitgebreide kennis van den Plantentuin mij als het ware heeft ingewerkt en opgeleid.

Description: Some collections which I received recently, contain interesting addenda to former studies of the paleotropical Frullaniaceae (cf. especially “De Frullaniaceis VII”, Ann. Bryol. Suppl. Vol. I, 1930) and Lejeuneaceae Holostipae (esp. “De Frullaniaceis XVII”, Ann. Bryol. Suppl. Vol. IV, 1934).

Description: The names Blumea intermedia Koster (syn. Bl. acutata DC. var. ß) and Blumea floresiana (Schultz-Bip.) Boerl. must be kept upright. Blumea humifusa (Miq.) Clarke var. monochasialis Koster has to be changed into Blumea tenella DC. var. monochasialis (Koster) Koster, for Blumea humifusa (Miq.) Clarke is a synonym of Blumea tenella DC. Blumea lacera (Burm.) DC. var. burmanni DC. is not a clearly distinguishable variety. Blumea runcinata DC. is a synonym of Blumea lacera (Burm.) DC. Blumea fasciculata DC. is a synonym of Blumea sessiliflora Decaisne, which is not a synonym of the closely related Blumea fistulosa (Roxb.) Kurz (syn. Bl. glomerata DC. and Bl. leptoclada DC.). Blumea chinensis (L.) DC. as well as Blumea semivestita DC. are a mixture of Blumea riparia (Bl.) DC. and Blumea bullata Koster.

Description: The name Arundo Bambos L. Sp. Pl. 81, 1753, is interpreted as properly belonging to the common thorny bamboo of India; therefore this species should be called Bambusa Bambos (L.) Voss. Arundo Bambos L. Sp. Pl. ed. 2, 120, 1762, insofar as it is represented by Linnaeus’ specimen labeled “1. Bambos” and by his description of this specimen, is based on a misidentification of a Chinese species: Bambusa flexuosa Munro (1868). Bambos arundinacea Retz. Obs. Bot. 5:24, 1789, is shown to have been based on the plant known today as Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. ex Wendl. (Coll. Pl. 2:26, pl. 47, 1810), and not on the common thorny bamboo of India, properly called Bambusa Bambos (L.) Voss. Bambusa arundinacea Willd. Sp. Pl. 2:245, 1799, is based on Bambos arundinacea Retz., but Willdenow is shown to have confused, in his text, as in his mind, at least two species under this name: 1. The plant which has since come to be known as Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. (of which he had a specimen labeled “B. arundinacea 1.”) and 2. The common thorny bamboo of India (properly called Bambusa Bambos [L.] Voss) of which he had no specimen. Traditional usage for 150 years has overlooked the facts in this case, and has erroneously applied Bambusa arundinacea Willd., and Bambusa arundinacea Retz. (as Bambos) to the common thorny bamboo of India. As a result of the long-continued misapplication of the name Bambos arundinacea Retz. and its variants, it will be exceedingly difficult to reïnvest the name with its original meaning. It may come to pass that consensus of leadership will be to avoid the use of the name Bambos arundinacea Retz and its variants altogether, at least for some time, because of the risk of being misunderstood, and to continue the use of the name Bambusa vulgaris Schrad., which is generally accepted in its proper sense. Those who use Bambusa arundinacea Retz. (as Bambos) or any of the other variants of the name, may be able to avoid being misunderstood by citing Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. as a synonym. Bambusa Schreb. Gen. Pl. 1:236, 1789, and Bambos Retz. Obs. Bot. 5:24, 1789, are synonymous, and are believed to have been based on the same species, namely the plant commonly known today as Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. Strict adherence to Recommendations IV and V of the fifth edition of the International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature, and probably the claims of priority, would indicate the replacement of Bambusa Schreb. by Bambos Retz. The continuation of the use of the generic name Bambusa Schreb., instead of Bambos Retz., has the sanction of tradition, and of contemporary preference; but in order to be fully justified and stabilized, this usage should be regularized and legalized by action of the International Botanical Congress, placing Bambusa Schreb. on the list of Nomina Conservanda. The genus Leleba Rumph. ex Nakai, Jour. Jap. Bot. 9: 9 et seq. 1933, is added to the recognized synonymy of Bambusa Schreb.

Description: Durch die extremen Existenzbedingungen, welche die Mangroven als: Formation bestimmen, sollte man glauben, dass die ökologischen Probleme, die sich in dieser Hinsicht zeigen, leicht gelöst werden könnten, um so mehr, weil diese Pflanzengenossenschaft relativ arm an Arten ist. Dass dies jedoch nicht der Fall ist, möge hier im Hinblick auf die Verbreitung der Lumnitzera-Arten im Malaiischen Archipel mit einigen Beispielen gezeigt werden. Im Jahre 1924 habe ich kurz auf die Verbreitung von 3 Lumnitzera- Arten im genannten Gebiet hingewiesen ¹). Meine Absicht war, speziell auf die unerklärliche Erscheinung aufmerksam zu machen, dass L. littorea (Jack) Voigt das Küstengebiet rund um die Java See, im Gegensatz zu L. racemosa Willd., vermeidet, obwohl beide Arten nicht nur in, sondern auch ausserhalb des Malaiischen Archipels vorkommen, ja selbst zusammen in ziemlicher Nähe angetroffen werden. Bevor wir diese Erscheinung noch einmal näher betrachten, möchte ich an der Hand von beigefügter Karte (Fig. 1) das gesamte Verbreitungsgebiet nachgehen. Dieses Gebiet liegt nahezu vollkommen innerhalb der Wendekreise der alten Welt ²): Die Mangroven, wozu Lumnitzera gehört, finden als selbständige Waldoder Gebüschformation ihre natürliche Begrenzung ungefähr auf den gleichen Breiten. Nur L. racemosa überschreitet grade an 2 Stellen die- Wendekreise: An der Ostküste von Afrika streckt sie sich südlich vom Steinbrockkreis bis in die Mangroven bei Durban aus, während sie nördlich vom Wendekreis des Krebses noch in dem Riu Kiu (Lu Tschu) Archipel, nördlich von Formosa vorkommt.

Description: De publicatie van dit deel is mogelijk gemaakt door den geldelijken steun van vele van Smith’s vrienden, wier handteekeningen zijn vereenigd in een album, dat hem is aangeboden tezamen met dit Jubileum-Supplement van „Blumea” en de speciale aflevering van het „Bulletin du Jardin botanique de Buitenzorg”. Het oude Menangkabausche echte gouddraadweefsel uit Kota Gadang, dat heeft gediend voor de banden van het album en van de voor Dr Smith bestemde exemplaren van „Blumea” en het „Bulletin”, dankt het Comité ad hoc aan Dr E. R. Jacobson te Bandoeng.

Description: On the 13th of October 1940 I found in the vicinity of a wool- and skinwork in Tilburg (The Netherlands, prov. N. Brabant) a sterile grasstuft, striking me by its peculiar habit. I transplanted it into my garden in Dordrecht and there it was flowering for the first time in June 1941, and in July it was collected to be dried. On the 4th of July 1941 I gathered one more fructifying specimen at the same locality in Tilburg. Doubtless the plant was a Deschampsia and my provisory identification was D. media R. et Sch.. Sending the material with this name to Dr P. Jansen in Amsterdam I got his reply: ”Certainly not D. media. It is a species, unknown to me or, more probably, a variety of D. flexuosa“. This conclusion, however, seemed unacceptable to me. The habit of the sterile as well as the fertile plant differs strongly from that of D. flexuosa. The tuft is denser and harder, with thicker and shorter leaves. The panicle is longer, wider and more diffuse, the branchlets less flexuous, the culms are relatively short, as long as the panicle or at most 1½—2 times the length of the panicle (in D. flexuosa 4—5 times). The characteristics of the flower are decisive. The lower glume is 5 mm long, the upper one 6 mm, both of them overtop the lemma and palea of the enclosed flower (in D. flexuosa the glumes are little different in length and equaling or overtopped by the flowers). The stipe of the upper flower, remaining attached to the lower one, when the spikelet falls asunder, is densily pencilshapedly hirsute and 1.5 mm long (in D. flexuosa 0.6—0.8 mm). The upper flower bears a similar stipe of a fully rudimental third flower, in other words: the rachilla is produced behind the upper palea as a hairy bristle. These properties sooner recall D. setacea than D. flexuosa, but the anthers are very small, 0.3—0.5 mm long, on much longer filaments (D. setacea has anthers, 1.5 mm long, filaments 0.5 mm, D. flexuosa: anthers 1.8 mm, filaments very short). All this: the habit, the pale green spikelets without any touch of purple, brown or blue, and the small anthers on long filaments justifies a specific differentiation of the Tilburgian wooladventive. I propose to name it, in honour of Dr J. Th. Henrard, whom I owe so much in the field of adventives in general and of Gramineae in particular: Deschampsia Henrardii nov. spec.

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: This extensive collection, famous among algologists both of the Old and the New World, forms part of the collections of the National Herbarium (Rijksherbarium) Leiden since 1934. About fifty years ago it was started by Mrs. Dr. A. A. WEBER-VAN BOSSE (1852—hodie), an enthusiastic pupil of HUGO DE VRIES. The colonies of Nostoc, living in the ditches round about the Dutch village of Doom, evoked her admiration, which was the primary cause of an intense study in the freshwater as well as in the marine Algae. In the harbour of Den Helder North Sea Algae were collected; by collecting Algae on trips to the French Atlantic Coasts and several times to Norway (1883—1885) and further on a South African journey (1894—1895) the herbarium grew, as it did by the Malaysian specimens collected in Java, Celebes, etc. (1888—1889). During this Malaysian tour Mrs. WEBER worked in Tjibodas, where she described the new genus Phytophysa. In Sumatra (West Coast, Lake of Manindjau) she discovered in collaboration with her husband, MAX WEBER, a new case of symbiosis between Algae and Sponges.

Description: Thanks to the kind cooperation of Dr. ROBERT PILGER, Director of the Botanical Gardens and Museums at Berlin-Dahlem, I have recently had the privilege of studying and photographing a unique specimen belonging to that institution, which bears the words „Schizostachyum Blumii nobis”, in the hand of NEES, the author of the species. Although there are no data on the sheet to indicate its source, or the date of the determination, this presumably represents NEES’S type³) of this species (which is the type species of the genus). At any rate, the available evidence 4) points to that conclusion, and the specimen agrees in all respects with NEES’ description of the genus and of the type species (NEES, 1829, pp. 534—5). Since the original characterizations are so brief and, since those parts referring to the spikelets are so difficult to interpret, I present here a full description 5) of the rather fragmentary type specimen.

Description: This is the second contribution to a series of papers dealing with the Convolvulaceae of Malaysia (Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, Philippine Islands and New Guinea). The genera worked out here belong to the tribe Convolvuleae; they are numbered VIII—XV. Genus VII, Erycibe, belonging to the Erycibeae shall be treated afterwards in a special monograph. With regard to the geographic arrangement of the specimens mentioned, some alterations had to be introduced due to the new limitation of the residencies in the island of Java. The names and limits of these residencies are now brought into line with the data of the ”Atlas van Tropisch Nederland“ ²).

Description: In Blumea, Vol. II, 1937, pp. 239 to 277, appeared an article bearing the above title. It is a description of an excursion to the Salajar Islands, situated south of Celebes; lists of the plants found in the islands are appended. Prof. Dr C. E. B. BREMEKAMP wrote to me that in the Leiden Herbarium a small collection of plants, collected by me in the Salajar Islands, and long ago lent to the late Dr TH. VALETON, have been found. This collection contained, apart from the Rubiaceae, the special subject of Dr VALETON, some representatives of other plant families. Prof. BREMEKAMP sent me a list of names of these plants, for which I tender him my cordial thanks. Besides he communicated to me that a few plants are mentioned under wrong names in the original publication. They are: nr. 86 of Djampea is not Ophiorrhiza neglecta BL., but O. parviflora REINW. Besides the number mentioned, 1573, two other specimens of this plant were collected in the same island, nr. 1618 and nr. 1633, both at an altitude of 200 m.

Description: § 1. Das Ziel der Untersuchung war den Bau des Blütenstandes und der Blüten von Arceuthobium Dacrydii RIDLEY zu ermitteln und festzustellen, ob diese Pflanze wirklich ein Arceuthobium ist oder, wie eine oberflächliche Untersuchung des Blütenstandes es vermuten liess, eine Korthalsella; und falls letzteres sich wirklich als richtig herausstellen sollte, weiter festzustellen, wie der Bau des Andrözeums dieser Art ist, welches für Arten dieser Gattung von VAN TIEGHEM, HAYATA und LECOMTE in verschiedener Weise beschrieben wird. § 2. Material und Methode. Das Material zu dieser Untersuchung stammte von Pflanzen, welche 1931 von Zweigen von Podocarpus imbricata BLUME im Walde des Naturreservates Tjibodas auf dem Gunung Gedé in Westjava gesammelt wurden, und zwar teilweise von F. W. WENT oder C. G. G. J. VAN STEENIS s.n. (vgl. Bull. Jard. Bot. Buitenz., ser. 3, 11, p. 456) und teilweise von W. M. DOCTERS VAN LEEUWEN (NO. 14166). Die letzteren wurden freundlichst vom Sammler aus seinen Privatsammlungen zur Verfügung gestellt. Die spezifische Identität mit dem ursprünglichen Arceuthobium Dacrydii wurde durch erneute Vergleichung mit dessen Typus, der sich im Besitze des Botanischen Gartens zu Singapore befindet und nochmals gütigst von der Direktion dieses Institutes für unsern Zweck zugesandt wurde, festgestellt.

Description: Referring to the identification of BRASS 5219 from Papua as a representative of the Verbenaceous Faradaya chrysoclada K. SCHUM. by E. BEER and H. J. LAM (Blumea 2, 1936, 225), Dr C. G. G. J. VAN STEENIS, the monographer of the Malaysian Bignoniaceae drew our attention to the possibility that this identification might be incorrect. It was suggested that the specimen and also all specimens hitherto known as Faradaya chrysoclada might be Bignoniaceous and might belong to Deplanchea tetraphylla (R. BR.) V. STEENIS, as all other Faradayas known are lianas, whereas F. chrysoclada was reported to possess the tree habit, as the Deplancheas. We therefore asked on loan the materials of both species from the Herbarea at Berlin (B) and Kew (K), that from Berlin including the type specimen of Faradaya chrysoclada. Our thanks are due to the directors of the Herbaria of Berlin and Kew for kindly lending us the material desired.

Description: The Salajar Islands strew the Flores Sea between Celebes and Flores. The group consists of no less than 73 smaller and larger islands. The principal islands are: Salajar or Tanadoang, Djampea, Kalao, Kalaotoa, and Bonerate. A number of smaller islands form together the group of the so-called Tiger Islands, and to the south of them arc the very small, low Pasitaloe Islands. The Salajar group is situated between Long. 119°50’ E. and 121°30’ E. and between Lat. 5°36’ S. and 7°25’ S. See the map on p. 240. In May 1913, I was enabled to visit this territory, thanks to a financial allowance of the „Maatschappij ter bevordering van het Natuurkundig Onderzoek der Nederlandsche Kolonien” (Society for the Promotion of the Scientific Investigation of the Netherlands Colonies), for short: „Treub Society”, and also of the „Provinciaal Utrechtsch Genootschap voor Kunsten en Wetenschappen” (Utrecht Provincial Society for Arts and Sciences). The publication of the present paper was enabled by financial support of the „Leidsch Universiteitsfonds” (Leiden University Fund). I beg to tender my best thanks for all this valuable support here.

Description: This is the first contribution to a series of papers dealing with the Convolvulaceae of Malaysia (Malay Peninsula and Archipelago, Philippines and New Guinea). As far as possible the contributions will be published in accordance with the systematical arrangement of the genera. For a survey on this arrangement I refer to HAULIER'S fundamental work on this matter published in 1893 in the 16th volume of ENOLER'S Botanische Jahrbücher, entitled: ”Versuch einer natürlichen Gliederung der Convolvulaceen auf morphologischer und anatomischer Grundlage“. After all genera will have been published, a determination key will be added, based on the genera of the area under consideration, in which I hope to take especially account of the characters of the Malaysian species. Meanwhile the key published by HAULIER in the above mentioned paper can be provisionally used. On account of the structure of the pollen grains the Convolvulaceae as a whole can be subdivided, as has been proposed by HAULIER, into two groups, viz. the Psiloconiae with smooth pollen grains and the Echinoconiae with spinose ones. The former of these groups contains seven tribes, viz. 1. Cuscuteae, 2. Wilsonieae (not in Malaysia), 3. Dichondreae, 4. Dicranostyleae, 5. Poraneae, 6. Erycibeae and 7. Convolvuleae. Of the six genera worked out here, Cuscuta belongs to the Cuscuteae, Dichondra to the Dichondreae, Evolvulus, Bonamia and Neuropeltis to the Dicranostyleae and Porana to the Poraneae. For the limitation and description of the tribes see HALLIER l.c. and in ENGLER’S Botanische Jahrbücher, Vol. XVIII, 1894, p. 92, under Prevostea.

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: See for the confusion reigning about tho species of this genus Journal of the Arnold Arboretum VIII (1927), 234 seq. The only species cultivated in Java (not so much for its fruit as for its medicinal properties) is M. australis Poir. Formerly it went by the name of M. alba L. from which it differs i.a. by its shining dark-red or almost black fruits.

Description: Prom a number of Ginkgo trees kernels were examined. The investigation of the variability of the material was greatly favoured by the large number of stones, in total about 4700. In addition, one tree, grown in the Botanic Garden at Leyden, supplied the material for an investigation of the variability of the female “flowers”, in total about 1700. 1. The number of female “flowers” or rather macrosporangiophores on the brachyblasts (short shoots) proved to be most variable, showing a correlation with the age of the shoot (Table I, fig. 1). 2. A subdivision of the macrosporangiophores into a series of types proved to be possible (Table II, fig. 2-3). 3. A certain relation between the shape of the macrosporangiophore and the shape of the leafy organs from whose axil it arises, was stated. Here again the age of the brachyblasts plays a part. It should be emphasized that the term “abnormality” is misleading. A great number of so-called abnormalities in the macrosporangiophores of Ginkgo prove to form part of a normal series of gradating variations (Table III, fig. 4). 4. There proved to be a relation between the shape of the seed and the shape of the kernels (fig. 5). Oblong seeds give long, pointed stones, while pear-shaped seeds contain club-shaped kernels. Furthermore very small seeds with normally shaped, but very small stones were found. Finally seeds are found in which the pollen-chamber is situated laterally instead of apically. In these seeds the stone is abnormal in shape, its sclerotesta mostly being incompletely lignified. 5. A further point of investigation was the length of the seed stalk (Table IV, fig. 6). This shows a considerable variation, the Leyden material possessing very short seeds stalks, while the Maastricht material had intermediate, that from Slikkerveer long stalks. 6. Finally the variation of the shape of the kernel was investigated. First of all a subdivision into stones with 1, 2, 3 or 4 ribs was made (Table V). The Leyden tree produced relatively many stones of the first group, but four-ribbed kernels are very rare, two- and three-ribbed ones being in the majority. The ratio two-ribbed stones: three-ribbed stones proved to be ± 3 (Table VI). It is probable that the material of Affourtit and La Rivière has been subject to some sort of selection, on account of which their results are not fully trustworthy. 7. There proved to be a strong variation in the angles between the ribs in two- and three-ribbed seed stones (Tables VII and VIII). In the two-ribbed kernels a tendency towards angles of 180° was stated (fig. 7), the most frequent shape being that of the kernel of a prune. 8. The graphic expression of the variability of three-ribbed stones presented some difficulties. To their solution Bakhuis Roozeboom’s triangle-method was chosen (figs 8-11). The most important result is the extreme rarity of regular seedstones with three angles of about 120° (Table IX). 9. It is certainly very remarkable that so ancient a plant as Ginkgo biloba shows such a variability in so many respects.

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: The Ericaceous genus Rigiolepis was founded by Sir JOSEPH D. HOOKER (Ic. plant, third ser. II (1876), 54, pl. 1160) on a single species from Borneo, viz. R. borneensis HOOK.F. HOOKER was not quite sure about some of the characteristics, and failed to compare it with Vaccinium to which genus, indeed, several authors have reduced it. In 1914 I have discussed the Rigiolepis question (in Ic. Bog. IV, 68) in the note under Vaccinium uniflorum J. J. S. and was inclined to believe that Rigiolepis should be maintained as a distinct genus, although my material was not sufficient to solve the question definitely. Since I have studied many other species of this affinity and I do not hesitate to accept the genus.

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: Being occupied with studies on the Convolvulaceae of Netherlands India I met with a remarkable specimen in the Buitenzorg Herbarium, collected by Dr. O. POSTHUMUS during the expedition in Djambi (Sumatra) in the year 1925. At first sight this plant seemed to be a Merremia. A closer examination, however, soon showed some important differences with that genus, especially in respect to the corolla, which has a long, narrow and rather fleshy tube and a limb with 5 short, reflexed (or patent?) lobes. Each lobe is deeply bifid, so that the limb appears 10-lobed. The middle part of the lobes is fleshy just as the tube; it corresponds with a midpetaline field of the corolla of most genera of Convolvulaceae, the lateral parts of the lobes (lobules) are much thinner, membranaceous and nerved. They represent the interpetaline fields of the Convolvulaceous corolla. In general there is a resemblance with the essential corolla construction of many species of Erycibe, where the lobes are also bifid and possess a thick middle part and two membranaceous lobules. The lobules in the new genus are not fully equal in size, those on the right of each lobe, as seen from the inside of the corolla being always slightly larger. The corolla is fully glabrous or bears some papillae at the base of the filaments. The pistil has a two-celled ovary, each cell with 2 ovules and bears a long, filiform style with two globular, papillose stigmas, exactly as in Merremia. I suppose this plant to be closely related to that genus, but as the corolla with its fleshy tube and remarkable lobes is so different from all other species, it is impossible to incorporate it in Merremia without important alteration of the generic limits. I, therefore, propose to establish a new genus, under the name of Decalobanthus (derived from dexa, ten, λoβoς, lobe and άνζος, flower).

Description: It was shown that the oldest Dutch lichen herbarium known was that of H. Boerhaave dating as far back as the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century. After that there was a long spell of inactivity, until from about 1835 onward the florists again started making herbaria. From the end of the nineteenth century the interest flagged again, and collecting was done by very few people. The first publications which are known to deal with Dutch lichens mentioning the locality do not date back farther than the 17th century, the work by C. Pilleterius (1610) being the oldest one. Those earliest publications comprised but a very small number of lichens, presumably because of few of them the officinal application (the main impetus of getting acquainted with plants) was known yet. In the seventeenth century, the lichens were designated by phrase-names which, with some certainty, may be identified with the Linnean names, but nevertheless remain somewhat obscure. Gradually, in the 18th century, the interest in lichens shifted from the medicinal to the botanical side. The number of lichens known steadily increased, and the binomial nomenclature was more generally applied. The habit of uncritically copying certain successful foreign floras was abandoned, and it grew customary among the florists to publish cheek-lists of own finds, though specific, descriptions were often borrowed from foreign authors. In some cases, however, it still appears uncertain which species were meant, as no material was left. The lichenology in Holland showed its greatest development in the 19th century. Phis was undoubtedly mainly due to the activity of the newly founded Botanical Society (1845), and particularly by the efforts of its undefatigable president R. B .van den Bosch. Except for the experimental investigation by M. Treub (1873), however, the interest in lichens never surpassed the stage of writing enumerations of the local flora. None of the florists felt called upon to study any special group of lichens. In fact, there were no lichenologists proper, and lichenology in Holland was sterile. Whereas in all other countries of Europe the description of new lichen genera and species was in full progress, and other branches connected with lichenology such as anatomy, morphology, ecology, Physiology, and chemistry were being studied, there was an almost complete standstill in the Netherlands which hardly could be made up for by a single outstanding systematical (E. T. Nannenga, 1939) or physiological Paper (A. Quispel, 1943). Of late, however, a revived interest and a determined desire on the part of some sociologists getting more familiar with lichens is apt to brighten up this somewhat gloomy picture.

Description: The Charophyta of the Netherlands have been hitherto almost neglected. As far as I know only the following papers are dealing with the matter: VAN DEN BOSCH, R. B., in Ned. Kruidk. Archief 1, 1846, p. 100, p. 289. “II 1851 p. 225. both preliminary works to Prodromus Florae Batavae II, 2, 1853, p. 186—189. DE VRIES, H., Flora van Nederland, in Alg. Statist, v. Ned. I, 8, 1870, p. 39.