PITTIER—-PLANTS FROM COLOMBIA AND CENTRAL AMERICA. 7%] 
were only male flowers. At the time of my visit one of the older trees had just been 
tapped and had given about 500 grams of an amber yellow, translucent scrap rubber, 
apparently of excellent quality. 
The collected materials were identified later as belonging to Sapium verum Hemsl., 
the small noticed differences in the characters of the leaf being ascribed to their rather 
immature condition. When, however, our herbarium sheets were submitted to the 
authorities at the Kew Herbarium, they were very emphatic in their belief that my 
determination was wrong: “The specimen sent as Sapium verum Hemsl. is not that 
species, and it appears to be distinct from any other in the Kew Herbarium. It has 
oblong-oblanceolate leaves, acutely cuneate at the base, with sharply serrulate mar- 
gins, and the upper surface is not papillous, whereas in S. verum the leaves are oblong, 
obtuse at the base, and the margin is very remotely glandular-denticulate, and the 
upper surface, when seen through a pocket lens, is minutely papillous.”? The devia- 
tion in the shape of the leaf and the details of the margin is, as mentioned above, merely 
an exponent of the undeveloped condition of the former organ. The papille of the 
upper surface are a general character of the genus, and their absence on a few leaves 
can not be in any way conclusive. The shape and size of the capsules and seeds, as 
well as the angle formed by the primary veins and the costa, are far more important 
and correspond in our specimens with the description given by Mr. Hemsley. Ina 
further communication from the Kew Gardens it is stated that the seeds ‘‘are identical 
with a first sample received in 1901 from Mr. R. Thomson, but smaller than those 
received from the same source in 1890, and figured by Mr. Hemsley in Ic. Plant., 
pl. 2647, fig. 5-8.’ 1 (See also pl. 44, B, herewith.) 
Now, I think we have here a fair illustration of the danger of describing a new 
species on heterogeneous materials. In the plate referred to, figures 2 to 4 represent 
exactly the seeds which came from the large tree at Tocoté, the smaller tree from 
which the herbarium specimens were gathered being a seedling obtained from the 
former. Figures 5 to 8 of thesame plate, however, represent seeds of a distinct species. 
The seeds received in 1890 accompanied the specimens figured by Hemsley and 
belonged to them. They were sent by a Mr. R. B. White and were understood to 
have come from the middle belt, at altitudes of from 2,000 to 2,380 meters, of the 
mountainous departments of Tolima and Cauca in Colombia. The seeds sent by 
Mr. R. Thomson in 1901 came from La Mesa, in the State of Cundinamerca, near the 
upper limit of the lower belt (1,000 meters). They are identical with those accom- 
panying specimens received by me from El Chaparral, about 800 meters above sea 
level, in the State of Tolima, through the kindness of Mr. Andrés Roché. These two 
localities, situated on the opposite watersheds of the Magdalena, are not far distant. 
The identity of the seeds from La Mesa and El Chaparral is confirmed by the fact that 
Mr. Thomson sent to Dr. E. M. Holmes, the able curator of the Museum of the Phar- 
maceutical Society of Great Britain, not only a quantity of these, a few of which were 
presented to the Kew collections, but also leaves of the tree producing them. Mr. 
Holmes had the kindness to send me an impression of one of the latter and it agrees 
in its least details with our specimens from El Chaparral. 
My attention was first called to the Tolima Sapium by some imperfect and badly 
prepared herbarium specimens brought from El Chaparral by Mr. C. Wercklé, a 
botanist residing in San José, Costa Rica. These specimens were sent to Kew with 
those from Tocoté and were referred to S. verum Hemsl., while the latter were pro- 
+ This explanation is in contradiction with those given by Mr. Hemsley in the 
text accompanying plate 2647. Figures 2 to 4 were drawn from specimens supplied 
by Mr. White and correspond evidently with his herbarium specimens, while figures 
5 to 8 represent seeds sent by Mr. Thomson. The sources, consequently, are not the 
same, and the localities whence the samples came are far apart geographically and as 
to climate. 
