SHOKT NOTES. 185 



C. oniithnpoda, ail oiDmion in which Mr. J. G. Baker coincides, 

 although the si)ecimen is not altogether satisfactory for identification 

 from having only immature fruit. This note may induce some 

 botanist to search the locality with the hope of securing satisfactory 

 specimens. — T. E. Archer Briggs. 



Helianthemum polifolium, Pers. — Our Floras seem strangely 

 at fault as regards this plant's time of flowering in England. 

 Hooker's ' Student's Mora,' Babington's ' Manual,' and Hooker 

 and Ai'iiott's 'British Flora ' all give " July and August " ; and 

 yet I found it in full bloom on the cliffs near Torquay on May 9th, 

 in so backward a year as this. In ' Flora Devoniensis,' I see, the 

 time given is " June and July." — W. Moyle Eogers. 



A second (?) Physostigma. — A jDlaiit with ripe fruit, collected 

 in Angola by Dr. Welwitsch in September and October, 1855, and 

 named by him Mucuna cylhidrospernia, was, in 1871, iJublished 

 under that name by Mr. Baker.'-' Neither its jDods nor its seeds 

 agree with the diagnosis of the genus Mucuna, but clearly with 

 that of Phijsostifjma, and Dr. Welwitsch subsequently recognised it 

 as agreeing in the characters of its seeds with the latter genus 

 (founded in 1861, to contain the Calabar Bean of commerce), and 

 in the MS. ticket of his herbarium- specimens he suggests that 

 affinity. Indeed, the seeds of the plant differ from ordinary 

 Calabar Beans only in being a little longer and straighter, nearly 

 or quite cylindrical (circular on section) and not laterally 

 compressed, also the hilum does not quite reach the micropylar end, 

 and the colour is lighter and of a redder tinge. As the flowers of 

 the plant were not collected, any claims to specific rank must rest 

 on these characters of the seed alone, since the pods and foliage 

 appear from Welwitsch's specimens to difi'er in no respect from 

 those of the old species P. venenosuui ; the stipules are persistent 

 and ultimately reflexed in both, f In the ' Pharmaceutical Journal ' | 

 Mr. Holmes has recently made the mteresting announcement that 

 seeds identical with those of the Welwitsch collection (to which his 

 attention was drawn by Mr. Carruthers) occur among the Calabar 

 Beans of commerce. He gives figures of the two kinds, but the 

 seed of I\ venenosum is drawn too wide, whilst that of P. 

 ciflindrospermum is considerably larger than any of Welwitsch's 

 numerous specimens in the British Museum, the largest of which 

 is barely 1^ inch long. The locality in which the plant was 

 collected is so incorrectly quoted in Mr. Holmes' paper, that it will 

 be well to give it precisely ; the plant grows in the primaeval forest 

 {mata cirt/ein) at Quisuncula, near Bango-Aquitamba, in the district 

 of Golungo Alto, Angola. This part of West Tropical Africa lies 

 about 10 degrees S. lat., and is therefore at least 15 degrees south 

 of the previously known localities for Physostigma in Old Calabar. 



* • Fl. Trop. Africa,' ii., p. 180. 



+ See Bentley and Trimen, ' Mid. Plants,' t. HO (Part (J.). 



+ May 10, 1879; p. !»1;J. 



