126 Gelehrte Gesellschaften. 



belonged to the very elements of morphological Botany. — There followed 

 a note on a remarkable Variation in the leaf ofBanksia marginata, 

 observed by Mr. J. 0. Otto Tepper near Adelaide, South Australia. He 

 desci'ibes the plant, and then questions whether it might not be regarded 

 as a spontaneous production of a new variety or apecies, or whether it might 

 not be the remnant or representative of an extinct form. — Mr. R. A. Rolfe 

 then described and made some observations onHyalocalyx, a new genus 

 of Turneraceae from Madagascar. According to Dr. J. Urban (the Tatest 

 authority) the order consists of five genera and eightythree species , distri- 

 buted in America from N. Carolina and Mexico to the Argentine Republic, 

 and in Africa from Abyssinia to Mozambique and the Cape of Good Hope; 

 while outliei's are found in the Island of Zanzibar and Rodriguez. The plant 

 now added to the order was obtained by Dr. C. Rutenberg on Nossi-be, 

 a small Island on the N.W. of Madagascar. Its peculiarities incline Mr. 

 Rolfe to recognise in it the type of a new genus, as above named, with a 

 Position between Mathurina and Turnera; its most remarkable character 

 being its glassy transparent calyx, which is totally destitute of Chlorophyll 

 or other colouring matter. 



May 1. — Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., Vice-President , in the 

 chair. — Messrs. W. Dennison Roebuck and F. Newton Williams 

 were elected ordinary Fellows , and Professors E. Haeckel, of Jena, A. 

 Kowalevsky, of Odessa, and S. Seh wendener, of Berlin, Foreign 

 Members of the Society. — Mr. R. A. Rolfe read a paper, „On the Flora 

 of the Philipp ine Islands, and its probable derivation". After 

 a general survey of the Islands in their geographical relations, and inciden- 

 tal reference for comparisons to Alfred Wallace's, Lord Walden's, 

 and others researches on the fauna of the islands , the author gives a brief 

 epitome of the botanical literature on the Philippines. He refers to R a y 's 

 Appendix, Hist. Plant, iii. , the material therein being furnished by Father 

 Game 11, and still extant in the Sloane Collection, Brit. Mus., though 

 hitherto ignored by botanists. Nees's collections described by Gavanilles 

 in his „Icones" ; and Blanco's „Flora de Filipinas" , and later edition by 

 Father Villar are specially noted; as likewise Presl's „Reliquiae 

 Haenkeanae" , the collections of H. Guming, the „Plantae Meyenianae", 

 Father Llanos's „Fragmentes de Algunas Plantas de Filipinas", besides 

 other monographs scattered through various publications. Mr. Rolfe, 

 however, expresses himself particularly indebted to Guming 's collections, 

 and to the very va^uable help and incentive derived from Don Sebastian 

 Vi dal y Soler, Conservator of the Forests in the Philippines, who, when 

 lately working at Kew on the continuation of his „Sinopsis de Familias y 

 Generös de Plantas" , had induced him to study the flora in question from 

 its distributional aspect. So far as is at present known, it may be computed 

 that the whole phaenogamic Vegetation of the Philippines consists of 3564 

 species belonging to 1002 genera. Of 165 dicotyledonous Orders 119 are 

 represented, and of monocotyledons 25 out of 35; while all three Gymno- 

 spermeae , though present , are but poorly represented. The proportion of 

 Vascular Gryptogams to Phenogams is nearly one-eigth , chiefly Ferns. Of 

 these latter, fifty-two are not known elsewhere, a fact in itself stamping an 

 individuality on the islands. The endemic phenogamic Vegetation consists 

 of 917 species, or a proportion of over one-fourth endemic, the Dicotyledons 

 showing a proportion of over one-third endemic. and the Monocotyledons of 

 a little over one-tenth, chiefly Orchids. These figures may hereafter require 

 emendation as further researches come to light, but meanwhile the striking 

 feature of the flora is the large number of endemic species and the very 

 small number of endemic genera, a fact accrntuated on study and compa- 

 rison with the data of the flora peculiar to the neighbouring islands of 

 Borneo, Sumatra, &c. The flora on the whole approximates most to that of 

 the Malayan region-, moreover, there is still this to be said — that a large 

 number of typical Malayan genera have not yet been detected in the 

 Philippines , though many of these occur on the neighbouring Island of 

 Borneo. Mr. Wallace attributed a like distribution of the genera of 

 animals to extinction by submergence, though Mr. Rolfe inclines to think 



