628 STAND ley: notes on orthopterygium huaucui 



15. With regard to personal safety from lightning it may be 

 said that no place to which a person may ordinarily retire can 

 be considered as absolutely safe. The only places which can 

 be considered as closely approximating absolute safety are in 

 a building completely surrounded by a metal network, in a 

 steel frame building, or in an underground chamber. A high 

 degree of safety, however, may be found in a well rodded build- 

 ing; the next degree of safety is undoubtedly to be found in an 

 unprotected house which may be considered as far preferable 

 to the open or to unprotected outbuildings. 



BOTANY. — -Notes on Orthopterygium huaucui. Paul C. Stand- 

 ley, U. S. National Museum. ^ 



In 1907 Mr. W. Botting Hemsley published^ a very elaborate 

 account of a proposed new family of plants, the Julianiaceae, in- 

 cluding two genera, Juliania (or Amphipterygium) and Orthop- 

 terygium, the latter being described as new. The family is a 

 very remarkable one in many respects, and for a long time after 

 the description of the first published species, Juliania adstrin- 

 gens, in 1843, its proper taxonomic position was unknown. Some 

 authors placed Juliania in the Burseraceae or in the Ana- 

 cardiaceae, while others referred it to the list of ''genera in- 

 certae sedis." Hemsley, however, demonstrated that while the 

 Julianiaceae bear certain resemblances to the Anacardiaceae, 

 their affinities are rather with the Juglandaceae and Fagaceae. 



The genus Juliania is an exclusively Mexican group, composed 

 of four species, while Orthopterygium consists of a single Peruvian 

 species, 0. huaucui, the type specimens having been collected 

 by the Wilkes Exploring Expedition "in the vicinity of Yanga, 

 Peru," near Lima.^ Specimens of the same plant had been col- 

 lected, however, as early as 1831, on ''the sides of the base of the 

 Cuesta of Purruchuca, Province of Canta, Peru," by Mathew. 



These two localities were the only ones known to Hemsley when 

 his monograph of the family was prepared. Recently Dr. C. H. 



1 Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. 



2 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, London, Ser. B. 199: 169-197, pi. 18-24. 



3 A. Gray in Wilkes, U. S. Expl. Exped. 15: 371. 1854. 



