330 ME. H. TEIilEN ON BALA.NOPnOBA THWATTESII. 



Note on BalanophorcL' Thicaitesii , EicU. 



By Heket Tri^n, M.B., F.L.S. 



[Eead 3rd June, 1886.] 



Mr 



of the Britisli Museum, then engngod on the paper upon certain 

 JBalanopJiorcoB which lie has since communicated to this Society, 

 ■wrote to me in Ceylon asking me if I could give him any infor- 

 mation about a plant mentioned by Eichler in his monograph of 

 the Order in the ' Prodromu?,' and named by him Balanopliom 

 Thwaitesii, but not described. In reply I informed Mr. Fawcett 

 what material existed at Peradcniya ; and tbis I have brought 

 home with me, and now exhibit to the Society in illustration 

 of this note, which can be regarded only as a small addendum to 

 Mr. Eawcett's paper. 



The name B. Thwaitesii was given (" pro tern. ") in 1873 * to a 

 supposed new species from Ceylon, represented only by a coloured 

 drawing of a male plant, sent by Thwaites to tlie Kew herbarium t- 

 Eichler's MS. note attached to this drawing is as follows:— 

 " Hsec nova species mihi videtur nomine Balanopliora Thioaitesii 

 in DO. Prod, commemorata nee tamen descripta." In the ' Pro- 

 dromus ' he gives the few characters visible in the drawing ; but 

 nothing further has been published concerning the plant. 



The original specimens from which the drawing was made are 

 preserved in the Peradeniya herbarium, and are now exhibited. 

 They were collected in " Dec. 1854 " at Eaxawa, a place at an 

 elevation of some 4000 feet. The late Dr. Thwaites t did not 

 distinguish them from B. indica, and placed them under the 

 same C. P. number 200. No female specimens were collected. 



In January 1881 one of the Garden coolies brought me fine 

 living specimens, both male and female, of this plant, which he 

 said he had collected at Nuwara Eliya, a locality at over 6000 



feet elevation. 



§ 



then arrived at tlie conclusion that Eichler was correct in con- 

 sideriug the plant distinct as a species from B. indica ; and in 



* DC. Prod. xvii. p. 140. 



t Being a facsimile of one in the Peradeniya Collection. 

 + Thwaites, Enum. Fl, Zeyl. p. 21)3 (1861). 

 I regret that, not knowing at the time the rarity of the plant, I preserved 

 dried specimens only, and put none into spirit. 



