■' t 



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.* 4 



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A REVISION (>K TFTK GKXrS UAI'HTA, 



221 



A Revision of the Gcnu:^ Baplda^ DO. (L(*guiiuiiosie). 



By L. V, Lester-GaiilanDj M.A.^ F.L.S, 



[Read 6th Xovombor, 1919.; 



The folIoAving papor is the result of a study of the rich matoriul contuiuod 

 ill tlio Herbaria of tlie British i\luseuni and the Royal Gardens, Kew, and I 

 aui much indebted to tlie autlioriti(^s of both those institutions for much kind 

 h(d|) wliicli has facilitated tlie Avork. A very hjrg(^ proportion of the 8peci(*s 

 ^v(^^^ n^pn^sented in one or other, or botli, of those collections, and Professor 

 Diels of Berlin ami Professor Do Wildmian of Brussels have vi^ry kindly 

 l<Mit or preseatcul types of tliose which w(^ did not already possess in this 

 country, for which I tender them my grateful ackuoAvledonii^nts. I hav(^ 

 thus been enabled to see authentic types of all the speci<'S exce])t two, but the 

 material in one or two cases was rather scanty, as was inevitable. 



The number of species has increased greatly in recent years, as luis been 

 the case Avith many other tro[>ical African genera. In the 'G<*n(M'a Plauttirum' 

 the number of species is given as G. In Oliver's 'Flora of Tropical Africa^ 

 (1871) 10speci(^s are deacribcMl, In Dalla Torre and Harms' ' Gen^^'a Sipho- 

 noirnmanun' the number has risen to liO, and in Thonner's 'Flowering Plants 

 of Africa' to 50. In the present paper 58 species are enumerated, excluding 

 synonyms and varieties. 



Thre 



ee species (i?. Mildbraedii Harms, B, ovata 



T, R. Sim, and B. Pynaertn De AVihI.) have been retJuced, nnd it is possible 

 that if more materials were available, one or two others would liavo to shar(^ 

 the same fate, but at present it seems best to leave them. On the otlier hand, 

 there are three new^ species and one new variety. 



In the case of the older and b(4ter-known species it seemed unnecessary to 

 quote more than one or two collectors' names and numbers for each district, 

 but in the case of the more recently described or doubtful species the 

 quotations have been made as full as possible. 



The genus Baplna^ commonly ascribed to Afzelius, really dates from 

 De Gandolle, Prodr. ii. p. 424 (1825), where it appears to have been first 

 diagnosed. In 1819 Loddiges (Bot. C'ab., Plate 367) had described a species, 

 B. nitida^ found(^d on a plant originally brought by Dr. Afzelius from Sierra 

 Leonc^, which Loddiges had had in cultivation for ten years, but he gave 

 lia<aiosis of the genus. In 1826, Desvaux (Ann. Sci. Nat. ser, 1, ix. 



no ( 



p. 40G) established the genus Delarki^ which included two species 



I) 



/ 



^/ 



f 



rom 



Upper 



Guinea, which was simply another form oE B. mtida^ thouoh wron^l 



to 



y 



identified Avith B. pohjgaJacea Baker in the Flora of Trop. Africa^ and also 

 by Baillon in Bull. Soc* Linn, de Paris, i. p. 445 (1884), and by Harms in 



I.JNN. JOURN. — EOIANY, VOL. XLV, 



S 



