blake;: revision of ichthyomethia 243 



of Jamaica, is distinguished by having the leaves evenly but 

 not densely short-pilose beneath with spreading-ascending, 

 usually rufescent hairs, while in the other four species they are 

 merely puberulous to strigose. In two of these, I. havanensis 

 and I. communis, the leaves are densely puberulous beneath 

 with incurved or ascending hairs, which are more numerous 

 along the veins and veinlets and coincide with them in direction. 

 In the remaining two species, /. americana and /. acuminata, 

 the leaves are distinctly strigose or strigillose beneath, and the 

 hairs, except along the costa and the primary lateral veins, do 

 not follow the direction of the nervation, but all point toward the 

 margin of the leaf; in consequence of which the hairs which 

 arise from the secondary and tertiary veinlets diverge from their 

 veinlets at approximately a right angle, and those which arise 

 from the surface below and near the veinlets lie across the latter 

 transversely. Associated with these characters of pubescence 

 is a difference in the ceraceous covering of the under leaf surface. 

 In I. communis the waxy covering is comparatively thick and is 

 divided by the ultimate veinlets into definitely raised areoles. 

 In most of the other species it is thinner and flatter and, owing 

 to the weaker development of the veinlets, does not have the 

 same areolate appearance. 



Piscidia carthagenensis, Jacq.,^ briefly described by Jacquin 

 from fruiting material collected at Cartagena, was said to differ 

 from P. erythrina L- in its obovate, much larger leaflets. No 

 material from Colombia has been seen by the writer, and Jac- 

 quin' s account is so incomplete that is it necessary for the present 

 to leave the identity of the species in doubt. It is presumably 

 most closely related to /. acuminata, and may prove to be iden- 

 tical. DeCandolle's account of P. carthagenensis in the Prod- 

 romus^ evidently applies in part to Ichthyomethia piscipula 

 and perhaps to other species not then distinguished. 



Loefling's Piscipula erythrina,'" incompletely described from 

 trees found by Loefling in northeastern Venezuela, is perhaps 



' Enum PI. Carib. 27. 1760; Stirp. Amer. 210. 1763. 

 * Prodr. 2: 267. 1825. 

 6 It. Hisp. 275. 1758. 



