999 The Philippine Journal of Science ihe 
from an examination of Burman’s actual types, this has been 
indicated in the present paper. No botanist with a wide know- 
ledge of the Indo-Malayan flora seems to have made a critical- 
examination of Burman’s Flora Indica or of his herbarium with 
a view of correlating his work with that of other authors. It 
would admittedly have been best could the extant specimens have 
been examined; but it being impracticable for me to do this at 
the present time, I have attempted a preliminary interpretation 
of Burman’s species from the published data alone. Considering 
the usually short and imperfect descriptions a surprisingly high 
percentage of Burman’s species can definitely be correlated with 
those of other authors without the necessity of examining his 
types; but in some cases, indicated by an asterisk in the following 
enumeration, more definite interpretations than those here indi- 
cated cannot be made without an examination of the actual type 
in each case. 
In completing this short work I am impressed with the fact 
that many European botanists do not seem fully to realize the 
value and utility of types when interpreting insufficiently de- 
scribed species of the early authors. In many cases a few hours’ 
journey, or in others merely a little correspondence would make 
available the data which would definitely fix the status of a 
species. Instead of this course, however, the unsatisfactory but 
easy method seems to have been pursued of leaving the unknown 
ones under “species incognitae,” “species valde dubiae,” “species 
excludendae,” or other equally unsatisfactory categories. 
In order to make the present publication more generally useful 
to modern botanists I have not treated Burman’s species in the 
sequence in which they were published under the Linnean system 
of classes and orders, but have rearranged them under the 
modern system of families and genera, following the Engler and 
Prantl system. 
THALLOPHYTA 
ALGAE 
CHARALES 
CHARA Linnaeus 
* CHARA sp.” 
? Ulva javanica Burm. f. Fl. Ind. (1768) 239. 
This was based on a Javan specimen with a citation of the 
* Species marked with an asterisk in this enumeration are of more or 
less doubtful status. 
