FLORA OF CENTRAL MADAGASCAR. 17 



kiiidly sent me, I have drawn up the foregoing diagnosis, from 

 which it will be evident that the plant belongs to Zollinger's genus 

 Radermachera, which, although considered by Bureau to be distin- 

 guished from Stereospennum by " des caracteres nombreux et 

 importants,'"'' I very willingly follow Mr. Benthamf in regardmg 

 as a mere section of that genus. It appears, from the descriptions, 

 to be quite distinct from the other six species of this group, already 

 known, J and is, I suspect, nearest to li. Banaibanai, Bur. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLOEA OF CENTRAL 

 MADAGASCAR. 



By J. G-. Baker, F.R.S. 



During the last few years our knowledge of the Botany of 

 Madagascar has been increased very materially. Fu'st some of the 

 English ladies resident in the capital set themselves to work 

 energetically, to make collections of the indigenous Ferns of the 

 island. Miss Helen Gilpin, of the Friends' Foreign Mission, and 

 the late Mrs. Pool together obtained about 200 species, of which 

 25 per cent, proved to be novelties. These two collections I 

 reported upon to the Society at the time that they were received 

 (/ Journ. Linn. Soc.,' vol. xv., p. 411 ; and vol. xvi., p. 197). Then 

 Mr. Langley Kitching, who travelled widely through the central 

 provmces on a missionary journey, brought home a small but very 

 interesting collection. A list of his Ferns will be found in 

 this Journal for 1880, p. 326, and his new and more interesting 

 flowering plants in the ' Journal of the Linnean Society,' xviii., 

 pp. 264-280 (1881). During the latter half of 1880 and the 

 Ijeginning of 1881 we received at Kew three considerable col- 

 lections, two of which came in two separate instalments, with an 

 interval of time between them. The first of these contained 

 upwards of 300 numbers, and was made principally in the Betsileo 

 country by the Rev. R. Baron, of the London Missionary Society, 

 who resided for some time at Fianarantsoa, the chief town of that 

 province. The southern part of the ridge of high ground wdiich 

 runs north and south through the whole of Central Madagascar 

 has been scarcely explored at all botanically, so that Mr. Baron's 

 collection is of great interest, and contains many new species ; and 

 the value of the specimens is much enhanced by the notes, habit, 

 and character made from the living plants which he has sent along 

 with them, which I have used largely in di-awing up the following 

 descriptions. The second parcel was sent by Dr. Parker, of 

 Antananarivo. Collections have previously been made in the 



* Bureau, Adans. ii. 191. See also the same author's ' Monographie des 

 Bignoniacees,' 50, where the slightness of the differential characters is made 

 evident. 



t Gen. Plant, ii. 10^7. 



\ Seemann, Journ. Bot. viii, 141!. 



D 



