Publication Date:
2024-01-12
Description:
In 1934 Dr van Steenis recorded Elisma natans (L.) Buch. for the first time outside Europe, viz. from Java. This unusual record was based on a single specimen collected in 1932 by Dr A. Kleinhoonte in Central Java at 2000 m altitude on Mt Di\xc3\xabng, now preserved in the Herbarium Bogoriense. Miss Kleinhoonte assumed there was little doubt that she had collected it in Java. After having collected information from the Fisheries Department in Java, that no Elisma was ever planted by that Service, Dr van Steenis stated (1, p. 175): \xe2\x80\x9cThough it is a waterplant, I cannot account for this enormous discontinuity.\xe2\x80\x9d A year later (2, p. 55) he gave a figure of the specimen and concluded that he felt forced to accept the species as a native of Java.\nHowever, he nursed a feeling that there was something wrong in this forced assumption. The pools on Mt Di\xc3\xabng are easy to reach and have been subjected to repeated botanical field work by experienced botanists onwards of Junghuhn. His doubt was later still strengthened by the fact that shortly before the war, the late Mr J. G. T. Loogen, a planter and enthusiastic amateur-botanist living N. of Mt Di\xc3\xabng, repeatedly searched the spot where Elisma was said to be found but without success.
Repository Name:
National Museum of Natural History, Netherlands
Type:
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Format:
application/pdf
