2 SMITHSONIAN "MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 60 



British Museum, collected on the Island of Molokai by Nelson, the 

 companion of Captain Cook. The description was based upon incom- 

 plete material and the author was in doubt as to the genus to which 

 the plant should be referred, no fruit having been seen by him. The 

 species was later collected in 185 1, again on Molokai, by E. Jules 

 Remy, a member of the Societe Botanique de France, and collaborator 

 of Gay's Flora Chilena, while on a mission to Hawaii for the Paris 

 Museum. Dr. Wm. Hillebrand, 1 in 1888, gave a very full description 

 of the species and also briefly described the narrow-bracted variety /? 

 from the Island of Oahu. He mentions R. Meyer as having dis- 

 covered three trees of the typical form on the western end of Molokai, 

 which could not be found on a subsequent visit. Two years ago Mr. 

 J. F. Rock discovered 2 a single, nearly dead tree, belonging to See- 

 mann's species, in the type locality, which tree has since died. 



To summarize briefly : We have ( 1 ) a new species on the Island 

 of Hawaii, represented by the four trees now growing on the slopes 

 of Hualalai; (2) the species described by Seemann from the Island 

 of Molokai, and not seen since 1910; (3) Hillebrand's "variety /3 " 

 from the Island of Oahu, which has not been re-discovered, so far as 

 known, since the publication of Hillebrand's Flora in 1888. It is 

 believed by the writer that these three species comprise a new genus, 

 most nearly related to Gossypium. It may be described as follows : 



KOKIA Lewton, new genus 



Generic characters. — Trees 12 to 25 feet; woody throughout. 

 Flowers single in the axils of the uppermost leaves ; peduncle bearing 

 below the middle a broadly sessile, obliquely clasping, caducous, ovate 

 bract. Bracteoles 3, persistent, accrescent, ovate, entire, sinuate or 

 slightly lobed, narrowed at the base, not in the least auriculate, 

 coriaceous, glabrous, strongly reticulated, 7-13 nerved. Calyx urceo- 

 late, thin, scarious, punctate with black warts ; lobes 5, shallow, 

 rounded, the scarious almost hyaline margins overlapping and com- 

 pletely enclosing the bud. Calyx tube often with a median transverse 

 vein, the upper half of the calyx usually soon breaking off at this 

 point, giving the calyx the appearance of being truncate. At the base 

 of the calyx tube at the point of insertion of the petals there is a ring 

 of stiff, brownish hairs. Floral nectary naked, extra-floral nectaries 

 not evident. Corolla two to three times the length of the bracteoles, 



1 Hillebrand, W. : Flora of the Hawaiian Islands, 1888, p. 51. 



2 Report of the Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry of the 

 Territory of Hawaii, Dec, 1910, p. 72. 



