[_Grow)i Co^njri(jld Rmiirved 



ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 



BULLETIN 



OP 



MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 



No. 2 



[1915 



IV.-DIOSPYROS EBENASTER. 



M. B. Scott. 



Diospyros Ebena^teTy lietz. is a widely cultivated tree, aud is 

 I'ecorded from various botanic gardens in different parts of tlie 

 world, but the information concerning its natural habitat is 

 often contradictory and apparentl}^ inexact or incomplete. The 

 object of these notes is to attempt to remove the confusion 



such conflicting data, and to 



om 



•determine if possible the natural home of the plant. 



Blanco in his *' Flora de Filipinas/' p. 211, says that the plant 

 is indigenous to the Philippine Islands, but that the Indians 

 ctiltivate it. Merrill, however, writes on the label attached to 

 his specimen 3800 from Manila (December 17th, 1903), 

 ** Cultivated only in Philippines, Blanco to contrary notwith- 

 standing, and now rarely found/' The same authority, in his 

 recent ** Plora of Manila," p. 364, states that the tree is rarely 

 cultivated and only of local occurrence in the Philippines, adding 

 that it was '' introduced from Mexico at an early date, and 

 apparently formerly much more common than now. * Hiern in 

 his monograph of the Ebenaceae follows Blanco and quotes the 

 following: — ^' Philippirtes, Sonnerat, Blanco; Celebes, Jacquin; 

 Amboina, Eumph./' adding, '^ Cultivated in Mauritius, at 

 Calcutta, and Malacca, Maingay 975. Occurs also in cultivated 

 places in tropical America, perhaps introduced/' As we have 



wr 



We 



does not -record the plant from Java or Celebes, 

 that Jacquin in " Hort. Schoen.," vol. iii. p. 35, is not veiy 

 explicit as to the locality of the plant, saying only, ** Crescit in 

 insula Celebes. Culta in insula Mauritii." Bumphius is more 

 definite; he says that it is ''rare in Amboina, only one here and 

 there in the region of Hitoe and in Ban da, but frequent in 

 Ceram and certainly in Bonoa; likewise in Sumatra round 

 Jamby." From this it would appear that the tree is a native of 

 these islands. The plant, however, which Rumphius figures and 

 rails "Hebenaster" is reduced by Miquel in his "Flora van 

 Nederlandsch Indie," a^oI. ii. p. 1047, to D.Ehrnum Retz. (which, 

 bv thp wav. should be D. Ehenurn Koen., as Koeniff describcfl it in 



(3706.) Wt. 22.':-5P5. 1,125. 3 16. J. T. <l- S. G. 14 



