224 Neue Litteratur. 



Lecoyer, J. C, Monographie du genre Thalictrum. (Bulletin de la Society 

 royale de botanique de Belgique. Mömoires. T. XXIV. 1885. Partie I. 

 p. 78.) 



Mueller, Ferd. Baron von, Description of a new Papuan Bassia , yielding 

 an edible fruit. (Extra print l'rom the Victorian ^Chemist and Druggist*. 

 April, 1885.) 



[Since years it was known, that in the south-eastern parts of New 

 Guinea a tree exists, which affords a fruit so wholesome and palatable, 

 that it is largely consumed not only by the natives , but also by the 

 European and other settlers. Hitherto however no means were available, 

 to trace this fruit to the particular species of tree aifording it. My 

 wish to obtain füll material for placing this highly useful plant on 

 phytographic record having been rendered known to the worthy missio- 

 naries of New Guinea, I was recently supplied with flowering and leafy 

 branchlets and also seeds of the tree in question by the Rev. William 

 Wyatt Gill, and thus I am now enabled to offer a diagnosis of this 

 interesting species , which promises to become important for tropical 

 culture. 



Bassia Erskineana.— Branchlets robust, glabrous ; leaves largo, crow- 

 ded at the summit of the branchlets, ovate-lanceolar, glabrous, bluntly 

 acuminated , narrowed into a short stalk , very spreadingly veined, 

 faintly reticular-venulated; flowers in terminal almost umbelliform 

 fascicles very numerous ; stalklets not much longer than the flowers ; 

 calyces rather small, several times shorter than the coroUa, four-cleft 

 to the middle, as well as the stalklets brownish silxy-hairy, its lobes 

 almost semiorbicular, slighlly pointed, the two inner broadly mem- 

 branous towards the margin ; corolla white, eight-cleft ; its tube not 

 vei-y turgid, somewhat silky outside ; its lobes almost ovate, narrowed 

 towards the base and there ciliolated and somewhat bearded ; stameus 

 16 ; filaments densely short-downy, about as long as the anthers ; the 

 latter somewhat silky-downy at the back, the blunt protruding portion 

 of the connective fhort-bearded ; style and ovary glabrous ; seeds large ; 

 oblique-ovate, somewhat compressed ; testa crustaceous, rather brittle, 

 dark-coloured, not shining; umbilical area cymbiform, occupying about 

 onethird of the surface of the seed. 



The specimens just utilized eame from South Cape , where the 

 vernacular name of the fruit is Posi-Posi. By dedicating this important 

 tree to the distinguished Commodore Erskine, J am eager, that the 

 proclamation of the British protectorate over South Eastern New Guinea 

 should also phytographically be commemorated as an event, by which 

 the great Papuan Island will become fully disclosed to peaceful and 

 prosperous civilization. 



The generic name Bassia might well be changed to that of lUippe, 

 as given by Koenig, as long ago as 1771 (Linne mantissa altera 

 563), inasmuch as Allioni five 3'ears earlier established already a genus 

 Bassia among Salsolaceae. Two other congeneric trees with esculent 

 fruits are likewise known from New Guinea — namely, Bassia Cocco 

 (Sc he ff er in Annales du jardin botanique de Buitenzorg. I. 184), the 

 „Nate" of the aborigines, a species bearing only small fruits; then, 

 Bassia Maclayana (F. v. M. in Victorian Naturalist. 1. 168), the „Dim* 

 of the natives, which has globular fruits of fully five inches diameter, 

 with copious pulp, adhering outward firmly to the endocarpal plates ; 

 the seeds measure about one and a half inches in length and fully an 

 inch in width, are more of a dimidiate-orbicular than ovate form and 

 considerably compressed ; the testa is very thick, of bony firmness and 

 outside shiningly dark-brown; the hilum occupies nearly one-third of 

 the seeds, and is not quite smooth. Rumphius (Herbarium Amboinense. 

 in. 184—186) mentions six kinds of trees with edible fruits as Vindoricum 

 silvestre ; of one of these six the seed is described and figured by 

 Gaertner (de fructibus et seminibus. II. 105. tab. CIV) as of Bassia 

 dubia , exhibiting so far as the mere seed is concei-ned close alliance 



