245 
.and that “‘ botanists generally have been content to work on the 
Malayan flora, describing as new the various forms that have 
appeared in current collections, without making any serious 
attempt to determine the exact status of species in the same 
groups based on Rumphian descriptions. Stability in nomen- 
clature demands that the status of these early species be deter- 
mined as soon as possible. for otherwise many reductions must be 
eventually made.” 
Inthe ‘‘Herbarium Amboinense’’ Rumphius named and 
described approximately 1,700 plants, the number of printed 
pages being over 1660 in seven volumes, with about 695 plates. 
According to Merrill the number of species represented is about 
The difficulties attending the identification of these 
plants, an the ‘absence of any dried material, are obvious— 
especially so when we consider that the descriptions are non- 
technical, and that owing to an attack of blindness, Rumphins 
never even saw some of the figures, which were frequently pre- 
pared from other than the actual specimens described. This 
explains why sometimes the figure does not agree with the 
description, and why more than one species may be mixed on a 
single plate. : 
According to Professor Merrill, there are scores of cases in Lour- 
eiro’s Flora Cochinchinensis (1790), for example, in which plants 
from that region are erroneously referred to binomials based alone 
on Rumphius’s work. e same is the case with Burman f., 
not placed under existing binomials uture monographers 
should not overlook these puzzles when dealing with Malayan 
plants. 
says (p. ; ature can come on 
adhering to definite rules and by critically working out the 
ch species in conformity with those rules. 
The families and genera are arranged after Engler’s system, 
e mo ‘ 
adaiee “Palancitrebtas ilicifolia, Kurz (sensu stricto), should 
now be removed from the synonymy of Tazotrophis ilicifolia, 
Vidal (see Kew Bull. 1918, pp. 147-153), and Cordia Mya om 
become Cordia obliqua, Willd. (Kew Bull. 1918, p. 221). At the 
