DECADIA 147 



descriptions drawn up by Loureiro ; moreover, as will be seen 

 directly, Blume could not have examined the type of Dccadia 

 aluminosa, although he claims that name as a synonym for his 

 Dicalyx aluminosus. Wight and Arnott "■' remark about Loureiro's 

 plant tliat it "appears to be a species of Syviplocos." Meisner,! 

 writing shortly afterwards, is in doubt about it, and places it with 

 a note of interrogation in TiliacecB and in Terns trcemiacece as well 

 as in Rosacea, finally following Wight and Arnott in thinking it 

 a Syviplocos. Endlicher j: sinks Decadia in Symplocos, but with 

 doubt, and the same conclusion is reached by De Candolle § on 

 the authority of a specimen of ;S'. spicata in herb. Hamilton under 

 the name of Decadia spicata. For Lindley |1 Decadia is synonymous 

 with Syviplocos. Bentham and Hooker ^i are more cautious, and 

 in the absence of material for examination consider the position 

 of Decadia uncertain ; Baillon appears to have passed it by un- 

 noticed; Gilg '■''■' follows Blume unhesitatingly. Brand in his 

 monograph of Syviplocacea \\ makes Dicalyx aluviinosus Bl. a 

 synonym of his Syviplocos aluvmiosa, but in doing this he expressly 

 excludes Blume's synonym, i.e. Decadia aluviinosa Lour., neither 

 can I find mention of the latter anywhere in the monograph in 

 question. Moreover, under S. aluviinosa he remarks that Dicalyx 

 aluviinosus has been indicated as equivalent to Syviplocos spicata 

 Eoxb., but he cannot confirm this, as of the three Blume speci- 

 mens named Dicalyx aluviinosus in the Leyden herbarium none is 

 S. spicata, two being types of new species — S. aluviinosa Brand 

 and S. syrincjoides Brand, while the third is *S. ferruginea Eoxb. 

 The position to-day is therefore that Decadia is one of those 

 puzzles only to be solved by examination of the types upon which 

 they have been founded. 



The British Museum, as is well known, shares with Lisbon 

 and Paris the distinction of possessing types of Loureiro's collect- 

 ing, and among those at the first-named establishment is a sheet 

 of specimens written up Decadia aluviinosa in Loureiro's own 

 hand. There are no open flowers on these, but buds alone although 

 in a fairly advanced state. Dissection shows Loureiro's diagnosis 

 to be wrong in two vital particulars. The supposed 3-leaved calyx 

 resolves itself into the bracts (or bract and two bracteoles) beneath 

 the flower characteristic of the subgenus Hopea of Syviplocos, 

 while the ovary, instead of being superior, is wholly inferior and 

 not even half-superior, as is the case with some species of the 

 genus. Loureiro's plant is therefore without the possibility of 

 doubt a Syviplocos. 



As to the species — that is a more difficult matter. While it is 

 certainly near S. spicata there are reasons for suspecting the 

 conspeciticity of the two. It cannot be S. aluminosa, which is 



* Prodr. Flor. Ind. Or. 82 (1834). 



t Plant. Vase. Gen. 'n. passim (1836-43). 



X Gen. Plant. 1411 (1836-40). § Prod. viii. 240 (1844). 



II Veg. King. ed. ii. 593 (1847). •[ Gen. Plant, ii. 668 (1876). 



** Engler & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. i. 168 (1891). 

 tt Pflanzenreich, 6 Heft, iv. 242 (1901). 



