ALBERT

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

Description: It is commonly accepted that percentages of pollen in a pollen diagram do not express the exact composition of forests in earlier times. This inaccuracy is due to several factors, for instance the different quantities of pollen produced by plants, the distance of transport etc. A pollen diagram tells us only the change in pollen rain on the locality where we collected soil samples. In studying a pollen diagram we find a close relation between the variations in the percentages of a certain species and the area occupied by this species in the vegetation. When the percentage of pollen of a species increases, we conclude generally that the relative area occupied by this species in the vegetation increases too. However, such a connection might be doubted. The variety of factors controlling the dispersion of pollen is so great that the interpretation of a pollen diagram often meets with great difficulties. The connection between pollen rain and the composition of the vegetation is a simple one in the cases where we are dealing with a region of uniform vegetation. A diagram taken from a region in which the vegetation varies from place to place has to be regarded with some caution. Unfortunately such a heterogenity of the vegetation exists on the very place, where we want to compose a pollen diagram. The pollen rain which falls into a bog arises from two sources: a pollen rain from the local vegetation of the bog itself and one from the surrounding vegetation. When we are dealing with great bogs, the pollen produced by the vegetation of the bog itself will be mostly that of herbaceous plants, shrubs, and spores of the Bryophyta and the Pteridophyta. It is the rule rather than the exception that the bog will be treeless. The tree pollen in such a bog mostly takes its origin from the surrounding forests. It is a fortunate circumstance in a diagram that pollen of trees is separated from other pollen. However, one exception is seen in the way in which Iversen composes a diagram for late glacial times. This method, commonly used for late glacial times, embraces a pollen sum not only containing trees but also some herbaceous plants. The origin of the latter can, with some certainty, be accepted as from outside the bog. Therefore the local vegetation of the bog does not influence the percentages of tree pollen. The pollen sum thus comprises pollen of plants which grow under the same biotic conditions.

Description: In 1935 the present author reported the occurrence of this N. American species in the eastern part of Holland, province of Overijssel, in the vicinity of Almelo (JONKER, 1935). He found the species near the hamlet of Harbrinkhoek on a wet heath. The locality was also the only station of Wahlenbergia hederacea in the Netherlands, discovered a year before. Notwithstanding the extensive reclamations in that part of the country the species now still occurs in a number of localities around Almelo. The plants cannot be considered adventitious as they were found in places that are comparatively little influenced by human culture, judging from the occurrence, on the first-discovered locality, of e.g. Wahlenbergia hederacea. Gentiana pneumonanthe, Viola palustris, Radiola linoides, Linum catharticum, Scutellaria minor. The late Dr. Wachter discovered, in the herbarium of the Royal Botanical Society of the Netherlands, unidentified specimens of Hypericum canadense collected by Lako as early as 1909 in the same environment, perhaps even in the same station; and Dr. van Soest identified two specimens collected in 1918 by the late naturalist Bernink near Denekamp, about 20 km E of the above mentioned localities. Bouchard (1953, 1954, 1955) reported the discovery of the species in France, dept. Haute-Saône. The plants were found in large quantities, at the stony beach of oligotrophous lakes, together with Littorella uniflora. In his detailed publication of 1954 he discussed the possibilities of introduction. He concluded that the plants are not adventitious. They may be autochthonous or naturalized and then, when the latter is the fact, probably by U.S. army units that stayed in that area during world war I. He did not preclude, however, the possibility of a glacial relic. Bouchard overlooked the previous publication reporting the occurrence in Holland.

Description: Vochysia sectio Ciliantha Stafleu, subsectio Ferrugineae Warming. A V. vismiifolia Spruce ex Warming stipulis incrassatis, foliis lanceolatis longe acuminatis, floribus calcari longo modice incurvo, petalo intermedio stamen aequante, stigmate terminali parvo instructis differt. Holotypus: “coll. unknown” (comm. D. Allen) in U, fl. 14 Nov. 1953. PERU, Nanay River near Iquitos, altitude 100 m., “quillo sisa”, tree more than 100 feet high, on clayey soil about 20 feet above river (Isotypes: US 2104976, Y 47782).

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

Description: During my studies of the Surinam specimens belonging to this genus my attention was drawn to the often wrong interpretation of several old species. To avoid future misidentifications it seems useful to give a short review of the American species that are known up till now. It is emphasized, however, that this paper does not have the pretension to be a monograph of the American species. For the greater part my study of the species was confined to the type material and the variability therefore is not known. However, this contribution may serve as a base for a future monograph of this interesting group. Attention is drawn to the fact that only older leaves of the plants should be studied, because the leaf apex of the younger leaves is in all species acute and the lamina may not have reached its definite form.

Description: This vegetation survey is the outcome of an investigation of the islands of the Netherlands Antilles carried out under the auspices of the Foundation for Scientific Research in Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. The data on which the present study is based were obtained during a trip which lasted from September 1952 until October 1953. During this trip the following islands were visited: Curaςao, Bonaire, Aruba, St. Martin, Saba, and St. Eustatius. A short visit was also paid to the island of St. Kitts (B.W.I.). The present work gives an account of the actual vegetation of the Netherlands Antilles. Other studies, comprising the systematic results and conclusions of the survey, are being prepared, and will possibly be published in 1958.