96 Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, 



XunstlerU20\ 5625! Malacca; Derry 9391 Distrib. Ceylon (Thwaites 

 C. P. 1489) ; Java ; Sumatra. 



Pongamia glabra is the well-known littoral species known in Southern India 

 generally as Pangam, in Northern India as Karanj, in Burma as Thin-ioin and in 

 Malaya as Malapari. Throughout India it is very generally planted, both as a timber 

 tree, and for the sake of the oil obtained from its seeds ; it does not seem to be 

 planted in the Malayan provinces. 



The typical variety appears in two somewhat distinct forms that pass, however, 

 into each other by all kinds of intermediates. These are : — 



(a) a form with medium-sized leaflets and flowers (the original P. glahra) which 

 is spread throughout the area occupied by the species ; also 



(jS) a form with decidedly larger leaflets and flowers {the form named P. grandu 

 folia Zoll. & Mor.) which extends from north to south along the coasts of Chitta- 

 gong, Arracan, the Andamans, Nicobars, Sumatra and Java, apparently without 

 extending westward to the Sundi'ibuns and India or eastward to Tenasserim and 

 the Malay Peninsula. 



VAR. xerocarpa, though only separable by characters that individually are trivial, 

 nevertheless looks remarkably different from the type ; it resembles far more the 

 two species known as Millettia decipiens, and Milletia dehiscens. Indeed, with 

 flowers alone, only a careful examination of the ovary, 4- or more-ovuled in the 

 Millettias, 1- or 2-ovuled in the Pongamia, ensures accurate determination. The 

 fruits of the Millettias are, however, dehiscent and therefore unlike those of Pongamia, 



Roxburgh used for this genus Lamarck's name Galedupa, first applied in 1786. 

 Lamarck's use of the name depended on his belief that Caju galpdupa Rumphius 

 (Herh. Amhoin. II, t. 13) was this tree. As figured, however, Caju galedupa has 

 equally-pinnate leaves, dehiscent pods and arillate seeds ; Po7igramia pfiabra has un- 

 equally-pinnate leaves, indehiscent pods, no arillus and a very small hilum. Moreover 

 Rumphius describes and figures Pongamia glahra {Herh. Amboin. Ill, 117] under its 

 Malay name Malapari. That Lamarck had detected his mistake is clear from his 

 having abandoned the name Galedupa in 1797 {Illustr. t 603) in favour of Pungamia 



taken from Adanson's name Pongam of 1768. This last Yentenat amended to 



Pongamia in 1803, and in that form has become familiar a name which, even were 

 GdZecZupa accurately applicable, is much anterior to Galedupa. The point would not 

 indeed call for discussion but for the fact that quite recently Taubert in the authori- 

 tative Natiirlicheii Pjlanzenfamilien has re-adopted Roxburgh's usage. Kuntze, not 

 satisfied even with this amount of change, desires to use the word Caju{m) ; that is, 

 he desires to use precisely the synonym winch cannot be applied to the plant des- 

 ci'ibed by Lamarck, as the name of the plant to which Lamarck's definition belongs. 



Loureivo, overlooking both Rumphius' description of the pods and his figure 

 showing its leaflets as opposite, referred MoJaparius to Pterocarpus ; he has been 

 followed in this by most subsequent botanists except Miquel, who, having seen 

 specimens of Malapari collected in Sumatra by Toysmann, removed the plant from 

 Pterocarpus and established it as a genus. Bentham {Gen. Plant. I, 465) expresses a 

 doubt as to Teysmann's illaZopari being conspecific with Rumphius' one. Everything, . 

 however, is in favour of the belief (unfortunately the Sumatra plant is unrepresented 

 in Herb. Calcutta) that Teysuiann's 'Malapari^ Is Pongamia glahra, jvist ks Rum- 

 phius' ' Malapari ' and the ' Malapari ' recently collected by Derry in Malacca, are 

 Pongamia glabra. But it must be noted that while Rumphius' ^Malapari' appears 



96 



