106 
XV. 
H. N. Rewcey: 
The genus Rigiolepis was founded by J. D. Hooker on 
R. borneensis figured and described in Hooker’s Icones Plantarum, 
t. 1160. This is an epiphytic climbing shrub with a tuberous root 
and stiff, thick coriaceous triplinerved leaves; the very short 
racemes are usually extra-axillary, hairy, with ovate coriaceous. 
bracts and a pair of similar but smaller bracteoles just beneath 
the flower. 
The flowers are very small and crowded, about 40 in a raceme 
3to4em.long. The calyx-lobes are rigid, acute, light yellowish 
green, becoming yellow after the fall of the corolla, which is. 
little longer than the sepals, nearly globose, about 2 mm. long 
and white. There are 10 stamens with the filaments shorter 
than the anthers, and a pair of horns from the connective on 
the back. The fruit is unknown. 
It appears to be confined to the forests on the slopes of 
Mount Matang in Sarawak, Borneo, where it has been collected 
by Lobb, Haviland (no. 1020), Hullett and myself (no. 12292). 
Several botanists have reduced the genus to Vaccinium, but 
in its epiphytic habit, extra-axillary racemes, and very small 
flowers, it is so different from typical species of Vaccinium that. 
I should be unwilling to include it in that genus; if referred to. 
Vaccinium, however, it and the were. new species should be 
placed in a distinct subgenus. 
By some curious error Merrill has reduced © Rigiolepis: 
borneensis to Vaccinium acuminatissimum, Miq., with which it. 
has nothing in common.* W. W. Smith described it as. 
Vaceinium borneense, without recognising it as the original 
Rigiolepis borneensis.+ 
Rigiolepis lancifolia, Ridley, sp. nov.; affinis R. borneensi,. 
Hook. fil., sed ramis virgatis, foliis anguste lanceolatis acuminatis: 
basi rotundatis; racemis axillaribus; sepalis majoribus, corolla. 
paullo longiore, stigmate pulvinato. 
Frutex epiphyticus (?), ramis gracilibus, apicibus pube- 
scentibus. Folia remota, anguste lanceolata, obtusa, basi rotun- 
data, 3-6 cm. longa, 7-10 mm. lata, coriacea; costa supra 
depressa, subtus hirta; nervi intramarginales tenuissimi, a basi 
costae orti; nervuli laterales plurimi, curvi; petiolus crassus, 
hirtus, 2 mm. longus. JInflorescentiae axillares, racem 
perulatae, perulis lanceolatis acuminatis hirtis; racemi densi, 
hirti, 5-10 mm. longi. Bracteae ovato- lanceolatae, coriaceae, 
hirtae, costatae, 3 mm. longae. Pedicelli breves, erassi. Calyx 
turbinatus, hirtus, lobis 5 lanceolatis acutis coriaceis. Corolla. 
> 
* Journ. Roy. As. Soc., Straits Branch, Special Number, 1921, p. 465. - 
+ Notes Bot. Gard. Edin. viii. 329 (“ 1915 ”). 
