HIPPOCRATEACEAE 
Hippocratea Linnaeus 
Merr. JAA 21: 374. 1940 
Hippocratea obtusifolia Roxb. F1. Ind. 1:170. 1820; Wight, Ic. 
3(3) : 5. £. 963. 1845: Laws. in Hook. f. F1. Brit. Ind. 1: 623. 1875. 
INpo-CHINA: Tonkin, Langson Province, between Dong Mo and 
Van Linh, Pételot 2119, Feb. 1938, on calcareous rocks. Tropical Africa, 
India, southern China and Hainan, Malaysia and tropical Australia. 
This species was originally described from British India and in modern 
times has been interpreted more or less as a collective entity. The Indo- 
Chinese specimen seems certainly to represent the same form as the 
1940]  MERRILL, RECORDS OF INDO-CHINESE PLANTS, II 375 
Chinese one currently referred to Roxburgh’s species, and conforms 
reasonably well to the characters as given by Roxburgh, as well as with 
Wight’s illustration. Lawson certainly erred when he stated that the 
petals of Roxburgh’s species were subulate; they are oblong-ovate or 
ovate-lanceolate. He may, however, have included much more than a 
single species in his interpretation of the species. 
