420 ■ swingle: a salt-tolerant citrous plant 



and amount of oscillations in the tropics must be linked to those 

 of higher latitudes. Changes of sea level must be separated 

 from local changes in the level of the crust. Multiple working 

 hypotheses must be tested by the application of new and sig- 

 nificant facts. 



BOTANY. — Merope angulata, a salt-tolerant plant related to 

 Citrus, from the Malay Archipelago. Walter T. Swingle, 

 Bureau of Plant Industry. 



In the course of a survey of the wild relatives of the commonly 

 cultivated citrous fruits, in the hope of finding new material for 

 use in breeding, the writer was struck by accounts of a curious 

 thick-leaved plant said to grow in tidal swamps in the Malay 

 Archipelago at Noessa Kambangan, in southern Java, where it is 

 called ''kigerukkan." A search for descriptions has revealed 

 a curious and involved nomenclatorial history, and a surprising 

 lack of information as to the occurrence, nature, and possible 

 economic value of this curious salt-tolerant plant. As early 

 as 1801 it was described by Willdenow as Citrus angulata, with 

 a citation of Rumphius' illustration of Limonellus angulosus 

 in the Herbarium Amboinense (1741). In 1834 Wight and 

 Arnott noted that the Citrus angulata of Willdenow was undoubt- 

 edly a Limonia, and Miquel later (1859) made the transferas 

 Limonia angulosa. In 1872 Kurz described this same plant as 

 a new species under the name Atalantia longispina. Two years 

 later he decided to create a genus, Gonocitrus, for the Citrus 

 angulata of Willdenow, making his Atalantia longispina a synonym. 

 In 1875 Hooker described the plant as Paramignya longispina; 

 and in 1876 Kurz abandoned his genus Gonocitrus and trans- 

 ferred the Citrus angulata of Willdenow to Paramignya as P. 

 angulata. 



The nomenclatorial vicissitudes outlined above, however, tell 

 only half the story! 



In 1825 Blume created a new genus, Sclerostylis, to receive 

 five species, regarded by him as new. Among them was the 

 kigerukkan, which received the name S. spinosa. Although 

 it is the first species listed by Blume, it cannot properly be con- 



