Rutaceae. 
The writer did not meet with this plant in the forests of Mauna Kea, but on 
the slopes of Mauna Loa at about 5000 feet elevation the writer collected speci- 
mens of a Pelea which resembles very much the above species. The leaves are 
quaternate instead of ternate, are subsessile and very slightly auriculate; they are, 
however, decidedly punctate and so are the deeply-parted capsules which answer 
well Gray’s description. It is an erect shrub or small tree with straight ascending 
branches ; trunk about 3 inches in diameter; leaves quaternate subsessile; flowers 
arranged in fascicles as in P. clusiaefolia; female flowers: sepals acuminate, 
petals linear oblong, acute, little longer than the sepals; the 8 stamens short, 
rudimentary, little higher than the glabrous ovary; style filiform, 2 mm, with 
thickened clavate 4-lobed stigma. 
It is still somewhat doubtful if this plant is actually P. awriculaefolia, as there 
is no description of either fertile or sterile flowers given by Gray, who had only a 
fruiting specimen. As the leaves are very variable in the Hawaiian Pelea, the 
plant collected on the slopes of Mauna Loa by the writer seems to be best at 
present referable to this species. 
Collected flowering and fruiting in the forests above Naalehu, Kau, Hawaii, 
January 13, 1912; no. 10012. 
On Molokai occur several Pelea with quaternate leaves, resembling this one in 
question, but are more affiliated with P. clusiaefolia than with P. awriculaefolia. 
Pelea microcarpa Heller. 
Kukaimoa. 
PELEA MICROCARPA Heller Pl. Haw. Isl. Minnes. Bot. Stud. IX. (1897) 839, pl. 49. 
A small tree with stout trunk and grayish bark; branches more or less curved up- 
wards; leaves in threes or quaternate, near the ends of the branches, on flattened, some- 
what hirsute petioles of 3 to 3.5 em, obovate-oblong, or spathulate, rounded at the apex 
and donee, spe glabrous above, pubescent below, especially along the midrib, 8 to 14 
g o60¢ i i h i le r 
an 
flowers all along the naked branches, in the axils of fallen leaves; 
Pes about 1 mm, 2 to 3 flowered, pedicels stoutish m; sepa 
about a 
Ss 
m the corolla, 4 smaller, half the length, or of unequal rae a broad filaments; 
: ‘ , with a very indistinctly 4 notched stigma, capsule small, 
euboid, 8 to 10 mm in diameter, merely notched or slightly lobed, glabrous. 
This tree, 10 to 15 feet high, is called Kukaimoa by the natives. It is quite 
common in the forests of Kaholuamano, Kauai, at an elevation of 3600 to 4000 
feet and inhabits the swampy forests together with Pelea Kauaiensis. It was 
first discovered by Heller. The writer found the tree quite numerous and col- 
lected flowering and fruiting specimens at different times (no. 5621, September 6, 
1909, and no. 2010 flowering at Halemanu, Kauai). 
Were it not for the small cuboid capsules the plant could be mistaken for 
Pelea sapotaefolia, of which Hillebrand omits the description of its fruits, while 
Mann says the immature capsule is puberulent and deeply four-grooved. 
The native name of this species, which means ‘‘chicken droppings,’’ originated 
220 
