[^Croivn Copjright Reserved. 



ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW. 



BULLETIN 



OF 



MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATIOK 



r r 



^0. 



[1915 



XXL— SANSEVIERIA. 



A MoxoGRAni or all the known sfecies 



N. E. Brown- 



of 



(With Plates.) 



)r May, 1887, an account was published 



with notes concerning the quality and value of their tibres. 

 Since that date the number of species has been greatly added to, 



and at present the collection of species of this genus in cultivation 

 at Kew is undoubtedly the largest that has ever been got together. 

 In 1898 there were 12 species known from Tropical Africa, 3 

 species from South Africa and 3 from India, making 18 in all. 

 In 1903, Gerome nnd Labroy in Bull. Mus, D'llist. Nat. p. 167 

 enumerate 20 species known to them. In the present account of 

 the genus 54 species are described,, besides some others that are 

 only known from very imperfect descriptions, some of which may 

 possibly be the same as species here described. Out of this 

 number 43 are at present in cultivation at Kew, together with a 

 few new species not yet in a condition for describing. 



The genus Sansevieria was established by Thunberg in 1794 



Cape 



flora and S. aethiopica) are 



p. DO, wnere two species \^o. inyrs 



described. Seven years previously (in 1787), however, upon one 

 of these eame plants, Petagna, Institutiones Botanicae, vol. 3, 

 p. 643, founded the genus Sanseverinia^ and what is somewhat 

 remarkable, gave it the same specific name {S. thyrsiflora) as 

 Thunberg did under Sansevieria. Whether Thunberg had any 

 knowledge that Petagna had already described the plant under 

 the generic name of Sanseverivia, does not appear, but the 

 similarity of both generic and specific names seems rather a 

 suspicious circumstance, especially as Thunberg in 1818, in his 

 Flora Capensis, vol. 2 p. 322, spells the name Sanseverina. 



Petai^na's name, however, is antedated by one year by the 

 name Kcyntha, which Medikus in 1786 {Theodora, p. 76) estab- - 

 lished upon the plant figured by Jacquin 2(S Aletris guineensis in 



Hort 



/ 



(3859.) Wt. 153-601. L125. 6/15. J.T.&S. G H. 



