PELEA AND PLATYDESMA 
JosepuH F. Rock 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
The family Rutaceae is represented in the Hawaiian Islands by 
several genera, of which the genus Pelea, named by ASA Gray after 
the Hawaiian goddess of fire Pele, is the largest. The species, 
which number about 30, including the two here described, are more 
or less in a state of confusion. They are very difficult to separate, 
owing to the many varieties and intermediate forms., The writer 
was privileged to work for about three months at the Berlin Her- 
barium on the HILLEBRAND collection, shortly before the outbreak 
of the present war, and also at the Gray Herbarium, which enabled 
him to unravel some of the existing confusion. The present paper 
places a few species of Pelea in their proper positions and also clears 
up the synonymy of P. auriculaefolia Gray. Owing to HILLE- 
BRAND’S misidentification of P. kauaiensis, HELLER, evidently rely- 
ing on HILLEBRAND’s description of that species, described the true 
P. kauaiensis Mann as a new species, namely, P. cruciata, which 
must now remain a synonym. 
PELEA SAPOTAEFOLIA Mann, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 10:312. 
1866.—This species is not represented in the Hillebrand Herbarium. 
A cotype of MANN’s species is in the Gray Herbarium, ‘no. 559 
leg. Mann, Kealia, Kauai.” The capsule (only very young cap- 
sules are attached to the sheet in a separate pocket) is not cuboid, 
the leaves are long, whorled (in fours), thin papery, yellowish 
pubescent underneath especially along the midrib and slightly so 
on the upper surface. 
HILLEBRAND’Ss two varieties 6 and y have nothing in common 
with P. sapotaefolia Mann. His var. 8 is identical with P. kauaien- 
sis Mann so far as the leaves are concerned; a single cuboid capsule 
(detached) is fastened in a paper pocket. In fact, HILLEBRAND’s 
label has the name first as P. kauaiensis, which he crossed out and 
wrote underneath “‘sapotaefolia fol. oppositis. Mts. of Waimea, 
261] : {Botanical Gazette, vol. 65 
