XOTES OX BRIDELTA 191 



plant mentioned below. The secondary nerves are 7-9 each side, 

 rarely forked. The twigs and petioles are pubescent and the leaves 

 pubescent or puberulous beneath. Stipules 3-5 mm. long, very 

 narrowly lanceolate when young, becoming liliform when old, persistent 

 and usually retiexed at the flowering axils. 



Roxburgh, on the other hand, describes the leaves of his Cluytia 

 montana as°gUibrous and the stipules as " small acute and withering," 

 and they are so drawn. The differences from B. Hamiltoniana both 

 in the drawing and the description thus seem at hrst very great. 

 Hamilton's plant, however, appears to me to be an extreme form of a 

 widely spread species which extends from the Kharakpur Hills in the 

 province of Bihar and Orissa, through the Kaimur Hills in the same 

 province, right through the Central Provinces where it sometimes 

 becomes common along rocky ravines in the hills, thence to the Concan 

 in the Bombay Presidency. There are three easily discriminated 

 varieties:— (a) The Bihar plant to which the type belongs^: 

 B. Hamiltoniana var. qenuina, Muell. Arg. in DC. Prodr. XT., 2, 501. 

 (b) The Central Provinces plant, which I now call var. StapJLi. 

 Leaves very variable in shape, but usually rhomboid or obovate with 

 rhomboid base tip obtuse or rounded, secondary nerves usually 6-7 

 sometimes up to 10 each side, often forked. Twigs and leaf-blade 

 glabrous, but buds, petiole, and stipules often pubescent. This I 

 consider verv close to B. montana. 



(c) The'Concan plant — B. Hamiltoniana var. glabra Muell. Arg. 

 (1. c). This has very characteristic narrowly rhomboid leaves with 

 the blade suddenly contracted below the tip, whole plant usually very 

 glabrous, sec. nerves only 5-6 each side, straight, oblique, but a few 



forked. . , , . 



The Concan plant, however, in spite of the distance ot its habitat, 

 more closely resembles the Bihar plant than does the Central Provinces 

 variety and" Mr. Baker unhesitatingly assigns it to the same species. 

 This, together with a knowledge of the variability of the Central 

 Provinces plant growing, and a consideration of the scanty material 

 of the Concan and Bihar plants, further incline me to consider the 

 Bihar and Concan plants almost certainly, and the Central 

 Provinces plant probably, all varieties of one aggregate species. 

 In favour of this view it may be added that a flowering 

 branch of one of the Concan specimens has puberulous petioles and 

 one or two of the leaves are obovate; Bihar specimens from the 

 Kaimur Hills depart from the type in being glabrous. All three 

 forms have the same characteristic stipules on one or another of the 



twio's. 



At the British Museum is a specimen endorsed by Dryander 

 " Ind Orient. Roxburgh " ; on the front of the sheet is a reference 

 to Coromandel Plants, t. 171. Dr. Rendle and Mr. Britten, who 

 kindly looked at the sheet, inform me that this may be taken as 

 -a co-type of B. montana ; this specimen is undoubtedly a form ot 

 the aggregate alluded to above. All the forms of this aggregate 

 have indeed been placed under B. montana Willd., at the British 

 Museum and all under B. Hamiltoniana Wall, at Kew ! This 

 specimen, which appears to be the only one from Roxburgh's 



