CLASSIFICATION. 
7 
The year 1876 was marked by the appearance of two very important papers on 
Asiatic Dalbergias,—one by  Kurz* on the Specics of Burma, the other by Baker on 
the whole of the species of India.t Both authors modify Bentham’s system: 
Baker does so only to the extent of suppressing the concluding dichtomy of the 
preceding paragraph, reverting to the system proposed by Bentham in. 1851 and 
followed by Miquel in 1855, with the result that the section Triptolemea disappears. 
For Baker’s action there is much to be said; it is not altogether convenient to 
unduly multiply groups that are separated by characters of unequal value. It is 
not, however, possible to endorse Baker's view that groups which, as Bentham truly 
says, cannot be considered to be well-defined or natural sections, constitute subgenera, 
Kurz, who independently does the same thing as Baker with reference to Dalbergia 
proper, which he divides into the subgenera Dulbergaria amd Sissoa, has, with 
reference to Selenolobium, adopted а view that probably no one will accept—certainly 
hitherto no one has endorsed. Тһе chief objection that can be taken to 
Baker's treatment of the genus is that he should have raised tho section Selenolobium 
of Bentham to the rank of a subgenus instead of acting upon Bentham’s hint ard 
formally distributing its species among Sissoa and Dalbergaria. Kurz, however, has 
done more than treat Bentham’s section Selenolobium as а subgenus of Dalbergia— 
he has removed it from Daibergia entirely, and, in spite of its very different anthers, 
has merged Selenolobium in  Drepanocarpus. Taubert, in his useful revision of the 
Leguminosae in 1894, has taken what the writer believes to be a step in advance by 
reducing the genus Lvastaphyllum to Dalbergia. In the suggestion there is nothing 
original: as long sago as 1860 Bentham pointed out that, if naturally treated, 
Ecastaphyllum is a section of Dalbergia, and even then only an artificial section, From 
considerations of convenience alone, Bentham consented to recognise the group 
Lcastaphyllum as a genus; Taubert’s action in merging it in Dalbergia, as Bentham 
in 1860 might have done, is rather a proof of the extent to which cur views as to 
convenience have changed than a mark of advance in our knowledge. The most 
noteworthy feature of ТапһетРв action lies in his having merged Leastaphyilum in 
the section Selenolobium instead of recognising in it a distinct section, as Eentham was 
inclined to do. That Taubert is right in what he has done is certain: Lvasfaphyllum is 
in no way to be distinguished from Scelenolobium. The defect of Taubert’s system lies 
in its not going sufficiently far; in its not recognising that the cleavage-plane which 
permits us to separate Sel:nolobium is not parallel to, but intersects the cleavage-planes 
between the remaining sections; and in its failing to take this opportunity of 
suppressing entirely the quite artificial and, in the light of our later knowledge, 
impracticable and contradictory section Selenoobim, Except for the real merit of having 
incorporated Ecastaphyllum definitely in Dalbergia, Taubert’s system makes no advance 
. on Bentham’s system. Не has not accepted Baker's union of Triptolemea and Sissoa; still 
less has he countenanced Kurz’s transfer of Selenolobium to Drepanocarpus. 
It is with some reluctance that the writer now offers a further criticism of 
the system thus universally adopted. As regards the section Selenolobium, it is 
* Journ, As. Soc. Beng. xlv. 2, 278 ; also For. Flor, Brit. Burm. i, 336, 341 (one year later). 
T Hook. f., Flor. Brit. Ind. ii. 
Í Engler & Prantl, Natürlich. Pflanzenfam. iii. 2, 335. 
