1898.] from the North-Eastern Frontiers of India. 303 



and which he takes to be Roxburgh's one, but which differs altogether 

 from Roxburgh's in habit, in length of peduncle (twice instead of half as 

 long as vaginal portion of leaf-stalk), size of spathe, nature of pis- 

 tollodes, distance between male aud female portions of inflorescence and 

 space between male iuflorescence and barren appendix. This misiden- 

 tification is the more inexplicable since Roxburgh has left a very 

 accurate coloured drawing of the plant intended by him, a drawing 

 that has been copied by Wight as his Ic. t. 803, and since Schott himself 

 expresses a doubt whether the plant which he figures as T. Roxburghii be 

 the same as the Arisamm amboinicum Rumph. V., 1. 100 f. 2, with which 

 Roxburgh identified his plant. The coloration of the plant figured by 

 Saunders (Ref. Bot. t. 283) closely approximates to the true Roxburgh- 

 ian plant, but the tip of the spathe does not twist as in T. Roxburghii^ 

 the plant which Roxburgh figures. The tip of the spathe does not 

 twist in the figure given by Rumphius though the account given of the 

 colour in the Herb. Amboinense agrees well enough, and for the matter 

 of that, the tip does not always twist in the plant as it grows ; the 

 chief objection to Rumphius' plant being ours is that its peduncle is 

 much too long. What makes matters more complicated is that we have 

 yet another species of Typhonium which grows, as if wild, in the Royal 

 Botanic Garden, and which has all the characters of the plant that 

 Schott figures. This species, for the writer is inclined to treat it 

 as a distinct plant, has a white barren appendix in place of the 

 bright red or terracotta coloured appendices of T. trilobatum and 

 T. inopinatum or the dark purple very long and slender appendix of 

 Roxburgh's plant from the Moluccas. Perhaps tbe simplest solution of 

 the tangle is to quote the Moluccas plant as Typhonium Roxburghii 

 Schott (as to citation T. trilobatum Roxb.) Aroid. i. 12 (excl. t. 17), 

 Prodr. 106 (in part) ; Saunders, Ref. Bot. t. 283 — Arum trilobatum Roxb. 

 Flor. Ind. iii. 505 ; Wight, Ic. t. 803 ; and to cite the hitherto unnamed 

 and undescribed Botanic Garden species which Schott has figured, as a 

 new species, Typhonium Schottii Prain=T. Roxburghii Schott Aroid. t. 

 17 (excl. descript.). A reference to the original works will show that in 

 his Prodromus, Schott describes the coloration of T. Roxburghii in terms 

 that are only applicable to Roxburgh'? Moluccan plant, and says that 

 the description is based on dried specimens and drawings ; in his Aroid- 

 dece, Schott does not venture to describe colours and it may be safely 

 assumed from this that both the description and the drawing are from 

 dried specimens only. Even if in both instances the description may be held 

 to include Roxburgh's plant, yet the drawing is certainly that of another 

 species. As yet we have been unable to find where T. Schottii is really 

 wild. The only truly wild and unintroduced species in Lower Bengal is 



