6 
doubt exists as to what R. Brown meant by his Cycas Thouarsii, 
and this name may very well be accepted as valid. 
hat Du Petit Thouars applied the name C. circinalis to the 
plant whose germination and fructification he had studied is not 
surprising when we consider the very imperfect knowledge of 
e genus which the botanists of his time possessed and when 
we take into account the fact that he was in no way concerned 
with the taxonomic aspect of the subject. When C. L. Richard’s 
they recognised the discrepancies between Petit Thouars’s plant 
and the true C. circinalis. De Candolle, however, with the con- 
flicting evidence of the earlier authors and no actual specimens 
fore him, left the question undecided, but brought in C. 
Rumphii as a possible synonym. Subsequently, in 1876, A. 
Braun, relying on Hildebrand¢’s specimens, accepted it as a dis- 
Kumphii* and mainly character- 
ised by its large seeds. The same year, unaware of Hildebrandt’s 
collection or of A. Braun’s papers, KE. Regel in his revision of 
C. 7 
P 
known rom “‘ Western Tropical Africa and Madagascar (Cycas 
Thouarsti, R. Br., Prodr. xvi. p- 528), and from Malabar and 
Ceylon, perhaps also the N icobars’’ and ‘‘ Miquel . rec 
1t from the coast districts of J ava, Sumatra, Borneo, Timor and 
the Moluecas.’’ - Tn Eichler’s elaboration of the Cycadaceae in 
me Natiirliche Pflanzenfamilien, vol. ji., i 
‘arburg studied 
to the conclusion 
S a distinct speciest. 
ingler who has treated 
In order to show clearly the contrastin 
: le fearl characters of C. 
Thouarsii, C. Rumphii and C. circinalis teak ma 
parallel columns. The m 
from the material available at Kew 
ave Btven, represent average features: the figures for the height 
of the plants are quoted from literature P t i of 
characters Mr. W. B. Turrill is res Pee 
* eg Ges. roe Freunde, Berl. 17 Oct., 1876. p 113 : 
e name (. Thouarsii is not mentioned by, Regel a i 
; : t \ OY. tvegel at all, nor is there 
. a rie by him to the paper by Du Petit Thouars or the memoir by 
I Monsunia, vol. i., p. 180, 181. 
an 
Cc. 
