PREFACE 



tunately I have not seen the material collected by Cuming and 

 distributed under this number, but I suspect that it may prove 

 conspecific with IX platycaulon Rolfe, which is a near ally of 

 1). lamellatum. I have not seen any specimens of IX lamellatum 

 among the collections from the Philippines that I have examined, 

 although several specimens referable to the endemic D. platy- 

 caulon have been received from the Bureau of Science. 



In the early days of Philippine botany new acquisitions were 

 described in numerous journals, for the most part in brief terms, 

 consequently it is a difficult task to make a comprehensive enu- 

 meration of the different kinds, to clear away the obscurity that 

 surrounds some of them, or to identify, in the absence of type 

 specimens, those that were published as new by the pioneer 

 students of the Philippine flora. Taken as a whole, however, 

 the doubtful species are comparatively few if those that authors 

 have ascribed to the Philippines conjecturally are removed 

 from consideration. That this should be so is all the more surpris- 

 ing when it is realized that the types on which Blanco's first and 

 second editions of the Flora de Filipinas were based have not 

 been preserved. 



When the third edition of Blanco's Flora was made ready for 

 publication at Manila under the auspices of the Order of Au- 

 gustinians, Andreas Naves, who wrote the part of the Novis- 

 sima Appendix devoted to the orchids and other monocotyle- 

 donous groups, included a number of names on the authority 

 of a list transmitted to him by Sebastian Vidal, the author of 

 Phanerogama? Cumingiame Philippinarum. This list is cited 

 by Naves as the Boxall Manuscript. It was prepared by Boxall, 

 not from collections he personally had made in the Philippines, 

 but from horticultural and other sources consulted prior to his 

 departure from England. In other words, the Boxall Manuscript 



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