120 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER 



Capparis sepiaria, Linn. 



Capparis sepiaria, Linn. ; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat., i. 2, p. 101 ; Hook. 1, Fl. Brit. Ind., i. p. 177. 



Timor Laut ; Wetter. — Throughout India ; from the Punjab and Sindh to Birma, 

 Pegu, the Carnatic, and Ceylon. Also in Java, the Philippines, and Timor. 



Capparis spinosa, Linn. var. 



Capparis spinosa, Linn., var. {Capparis mariana, Jaeq., Hort. Schoenbr., i. t. 109 ; Miq., Fl. Ind. Bat, 

 L 2, p. 100). 



Letti. — Timor and the Marianne Islands. 



There is little doubt that this is an unarmed form of Capparis spinosa, Linn., and 

 hardly, if at all, different from the Capparis rupestris, Sibth. (Flora Grseca, t. 487.) 

 Indeed, in Hooker's Flora of British India, i. p. 173, it is, judging from the distribution 

 given of that species, regarded as a form of it, as is also the Capparis sandivichiana, DC. 

 Hooker and Arnott (Botany of Beechey's Voyage, 1841, p. 59) do not actually reduce either 

 the last named or Capparis mariana to Capparis spinosa, but they say : " This appears 

 scarcely different from Capparis spinosa ; nor does the Capparis mariana seem to us de- 

 serving of the rank of a species." On the other hand, Gray, in Wilkes's United States Explor- 

 ing Expedition, Botany, i. p. 69, treats Capparis sandivichiana as an independent species, 

 stating that it "is distinguished from Capparis spinosa, which is sometimes unarmed, 

 by its longer petioles, only one-third shorter than the blade, and its elongated club-shaped 

 fruit, two and a half inches long by half an inch thick, raised on a stipe three inches long." 

 But the admitted forms of Capparis spinosa differ much more from each other than some 

 of them do from the Molucca and Pacific Island form. Capparis sandivichiana is figured 

 in Gaudichaud's Voyage de la Bonite, t. 55, the letterpress of which was never published. 

 Capparis mariana is figured in Blanco's Flora de Filipinas, illustrated edition, ii. (1878), 

 p. 201, t. 179, and it is there stated that it was cultivated in the Philippines, having been 

 originally brought from the Marianne Islands. The Herbarium specimens of Capparis 

 sandivichiana and Capparis mariana are indistinguishable, and the figure of the fruit 

 in Blanco agrees with Gray's description, being even a little more than two and a half 

 inches long. But the characters by which Gray thought to distinguish Capparis sand- 

 ivichiana from Capparis spinosa are found to be insufficient on comparing a numerous 

 series of specimens ; those relating to the fruit equally with those relating to the leaves. 

 In the Sandwich Islands it appears to be common now in some parts, especially on the 

 sea-shore, and Menzies first collected it on Vancouver's voyage in 1792; and the 

 naturalists of Beechey's voyage collected it in one of the Society Islands in 1826'. 

 Jacquin described and figured Capparis mariana from a plant cultivated at Schceubnmn 

 in 1797, which he states was sent thither from the Mauritius, though a native of the 

 Marianne Islands. This is confirmed in a measure by Bojer's Hortus Mauritianus. Allan 



