REVISION OF THE AMERICAN SPECIES OF RINOREA. 
By 8S. F. BLAKE. 
INTRODUCTION. 
With the exception of Viola and Hybanthus, the genus Rinorea 
contains more American species than any other genus of Violaceae, 
and in the world at large it ranks next to Véo/a in number of species. 
One hundred four African species are listed by De Wildeman in a 
recent paper, and others occur in tropical Asia, Madagascar, and the 
Mascarene Islands. The variation in minor details of structure of 
the stamens, particularly in the species of the Old World, led to the 
proposal of a number of genera by earlier authors. The genus was 
first taken in essentially its modern sense by Robert Brown,’ who 
used for it the name Alsodeia of Thouars, based on a species of 
Madagascar. The earlier name Rinorea of Aublet, adopted by Bail- 
lon in 1873 and by Kuntze in 1891, is now in practically universal 
use for the genus. 
The species of énorea are shrubs or trees, with alternate or appar- 
ently opposite, or very rarely ternate, leaves, and axillary or some- 
times terminal racemes, panicles, or cymes of small white or yellow- 
ish flowers. The genus is characterized by its regular flowers, with 
five free petals, and 3-valved capsule. In nearly all the American 
species the stamens are entirely free, and the connectives are dilated 
dorsally from base to apex into scarious brownish scales exceeding 
the anthers and free from them laterally and apically. In nearly 
all the American species, also, each filament is adnate outside at the 
base or throughout its length to a gland, which is sometimes longer 
than. the filament and is usually free at apex. In a few species the 
filaments are borne on the inner side of a sometimes 5-lobate disk. 
In R. dichotoma, of Colombia, the broad filaments are united for 
about two-thirds their length into a cup, and the connectives are 
dilated into a brownish scale only at the apex. This species also 
differs in its inflorescence from all other American species I have 
examined, the flowers being in short, dense, once or twice dichoto- 
mous cymes. Two related species, 2. andina and &. gossypium, are 
*In Tuckey, Narr. 440. 1818. 
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