574 DK. M. T. MASTERS'S SUPPLEMENTAL 



Supplementary No^es on Restiacece. 

 By Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.B.S., F.L.S. 



[Read 4th June, 1885.] 



Since the publication of my Monograph of Bestiaceae in the 

 first volume of A. de Candolle's ' Monographic Phanerogama- 

 rum,' issued in 1878, various additional collections have found 

 their way into our herbaria. Comparatively few new species have 

 been discovered among them ; but the excellent specimens of 

 Behmann, and particularly of Bolus, frequently serve to extend 

 or to complete our knowledge of particular species. The exami- 

 nation of more complete, and especially of more fully developed 

 material thus supplied affords an opportunity for correcting errors 

 of identification and synonymy. This is a matter of the more 

 importance from the difficulty experienced in identifying parti- 

 cular specimens, and in satisfactorily pairing the male and female 

 individuals of the same species. 



The difficulties above alluded to are specially great in the two 

 genera Elegia and Dovea, and they are enhanced by the fact that 

 some of the early writers on these plants assumed, without suf- 

 ficient warranty, that the particular species they were themselves 

 examining were the same as those mentioned by their prede- 

 cessors. Hence has arisen a conflict of statement and an en- 

 tanglement of synonymy, which successive attempts to reconcile, 

 or to unravel, have in many cases only served to intensify- 

 Even when, as is the case in our own Society, we have the pri- 

 vilege of being able to consult Linnseus's own herbarium, to 

 name only one instance, the difficulties are not always removed, for 

 lew of the specimens are absolutely authenticated by the Master 

 himself, and most of them are so imperfect as to leave their 

 identification still a matter of doubt. So difficult did I find it in 

 one case to determine what the Bestio thyrsifer of Bottbbll 

 really was, so varied were the opinions expressed upon it by 

 those who had written about it without the opportunity of seeing 

 it, that I went the length of suppressing the name. At that 

 time I was not aware that Bottboll's specimens were in ex- 

 istence; but now, thanks to the courtesy of Prof. Lange, of 

 Copenhagen, I have been enabled to examine the type specimen, 

 and am in a position to testify to the general accuracy of the 

 representation given by that botanist*. It is only an act of 



* Kottbull, 'Deucript. et Icon. . . . Nov. Plant. ' (1773), tab. iii. fig- 4 - 



