2 J. Pkrkins: 



from the Verhenaceae. Are Llanos and Vellar right, when they regard 

 the Litsaea of Blaxco as not belonging to the Lauraceae, but as a 

 member of the Verbenaceae? 



It is well known, that the original types of Blanco's plants 

 do not exist in any of the larger herbaria, therefore, if we wish to 

 establish the identity of Blanco's name with the name of Tuhczaninow, 

 Ave must compare the description of Blanco's plant most carefully 

 with Cuming's plant and VmAL's plate. 



As the leaves are described in Blanco's diagnosis "hojas 

 opuestas'', the plant cannot be a Lauracea, opposite leaves never 

 being found in that family. Blanco further describes a very striking 

 peculiarity of the inflorescence; he says "flores terminales en panoja, 

 con los pedunculos opuestos: cada uno con seis bracteas lanceola- 

 das, grandes, coloridas; tres a cada lado: y contiene reunidas unas 

 siete florecitas", i. e. in English: flowers in a terminal inflorescence, 

 with opposite peduncles; each inflorescence with six large, lanceolate, 

 colored bracts, three on each side, and each containing about seven 

 flowerets. If we examine tlie plant of Cuming, we find terminal 

 panicles with pedunculated cymes, each cyme with six large involucral- 

 bracts bearing seven flowers. The description of the flower agrees 

 well with that of Symphorema. "Cal. . . . figura de embudo" (funnel- 

 shaped calyx) "Cor. de figura de embudo, y el limbo en seis 



partes redondas" (corolla funnel-shaped, and the limb in 6 rotundate 

 parts). . . . "p]stam: once 6 doce" (Stamens II or 12). ... We see, 

 therefore, that Blanco's description accords with the character of 

 Symphorema. 



In the first edition of the Flora de Filipinas, he does not give 

 a Latin name, but describes the same plant under the native name 

 Balibai (p. 406), and at the end of the diagnosis adds the following 

 note: "Conviene en algunas notas con el gen. Litsea" (agrees in 

 some characters with the genus Litsea). 



It is a curious coincidence, that to the same plant that Tfrcza- 

 NiNOw has named lu9oniensis, had already been given the similar 

 name luzonica by Blanco. Briquet, the well known monographer 



