abstracts: botany 391 



BOTANY. — New or noteworthy plants from Colombia and Central Amer- 

 ica — 3. H. Pittier, in Contributions from the U. S. National 

 Herbarium, vol. 13, pt, 12, pp. 42, text fig. 32 and plates 19. 1912. 



This is the third of a series of papers in which the author describes new 

 materials collected during his travels, occasionally entering into critical 

 examination- of old genera and species or revising and complementing 

 the descriptions of species that, altho long known, have more lateh T 

 acquired some importance in economic botany. A thoro taxonomic 

 investigation of the tropical American tribe of the Olmediae (Moraceae) 

 brought to light the singular mistake made by suppressing the well- 

 founded genus Naucleopsis, partly on account of a fantastic plate in the 

 Flora brasiliensis and partly through the misplacing of an illustration in 

 the Pflanzenfamilien. 



With reference to the transfer of Moquilea platypus Hemsl. to the 

 genus Licania, it should be stated that this had already been made by 

 Dr. Fritsch in 1889 and therefore the new combination should read 

 Licania platypus (Hemsl.) Fritsch. This is a tree that bears heavy crops 

 of a fruit of excellent quality and it may, on that account, become of 

 some economic importance. The same applies also to Mammea ameri- 

 cana and several other Guttiferae; some of which are new and belong to 

 the genus Rheedia. Of the Sapotaceae several new species are described, 

 and the descriptions and synonymy of old ones revised and somewhat 

 modified. H. P. 



