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PEW YOR* 



BOTANICAL 



QAttDBM 



THE 



JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



ON AN OBSCURE SPECIES OF TMUMFETTA. 



By W. Botting Hemsley, F.R.S., A.L.S. 



(Plate 293), 



Several species of Triumfetta are essentially sea-side plants, 

 inhabiting sandy shores, close down to the high-water line in 

 tropical regions ; and two or three species are widely dispersed in 

 the remote islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, being among 

 the earlier herbaceous flowering plants, with such others as Ipomcea 

 biloba Forsk. (/. Pes-Caprce Sweet) and Canavalia obtusifolia DC, 

 that establish themselves on coral islands, from seeds cast ashore 

 in their light prickly fruits by tidal waves. The commonest of 

 them is T. procumbens Forster, named, it may be observed, by one 

 of the botanists to Captain Cook's second voyage round the 

 world ; but with this another species has been confused by later 

 botanists, including myself in my various contributions to insular 

 floras in the botany of the ' Challenger ' Expedition and elsewhere, 

 although it had been distinguished and named in manuscript 

 attached to specimens in the herbarium of the British Museum by 

 Banks and Solander, the botanists to Cook's first voyage. 

 0-5 Some four or five years ago, it fell to my lot to name a small 



^ collection of dried plants, made by the late Dr. M. Fraser in 

 British North Borneo. Among these plants was the Triumfetta in 

 question, which had been confused with T. pi'ocumbens, and I 

 identified it with specimens collected in Northumberland Islands, 

 off the coast of Queensland, by Robert Brown, on Flinders's 

 voyage to Australia, and bearing the unpublished name of T. 

 subpalmata Solander. At the same time I examined all the speci- 

 mens of Triumfetta in the Kew Herbarium referred to T.procumbens, 

 and I had no difficulty in distinguishing two forms or species ; but 

 as there was no intention of publishing an account of the Bornean 

 collection, nothing further was done in the matter. 



In the early part of 1889, however, we received, at Kew, a col- 

 lection of dried plants made by Dr. Guppy in the Keeling or 



Journal of Botany. — Vol. 28. [Jan. 1890.] b 



