side the circle. The whole company sits outside the circle 
in a wide ring, forming what is called the rice-bin or 
hepuh. Inthe centre, a bungele: plant (a poisonous forest 
tree which also has a meaning in this ceremony) is planted 
in the ground, and near it a branch of the tamun tree. 
The sowing, which is led by the magician, follows after 
this ceremony. The purpose of choosing the tamun tree 
is that the rice, by sympathy, will flower in a dense inflo- 
rescence near the ground, as does the tamun tree, instead 
of growing long, rank, and weedy. This interesting cere- 
mony is evidence of the people's familiarity with the 
Baccaurea trees trom early times. 
The genus Baccaurea was first described by Loureiro 
in 1790, with three species, based on herbarium speci- 
mens collected from Indo-China. 2B. ramiflora, one of 
the three species, has recently been designated by Mer- 
rill as the type ofthe genus; he likewise enlarged the 
concept of the species (1985) by reducing two other 
species, B. cauliflora and B. sapida, to synonymy. In 
this paper, however, B. sapida is retained. In 1866, the 
first monograph of the genus (Mueller-Argoviensis 7 
DC., Prodr.) appeared, in which 88 species are described. 
Pax, in 1922, in collaboration with NKithe Hoffmann, 
extended his earlier work (1896) by describing 61 species 
in the genus, and I am of the opinion that this mono- 
graph is still the most complete and the best work on 
the genus. Actually, the number of legitimately pub- 
lished species at this time is not definite (in the Wealth 
of India, 100 species are mentioned), since during the 
last three decades new species have been added and taxo- 
nomic changes have taken place within the genus. How- 
ever, an up-to-date monograph has not as yet been 
written. 
Indeed, Baccaurea is a very difficult genus to deal 
with. Joseph Dalton Hooker says: **The species of this 
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