176 D. Pram — A list of the Asiatic species of Ormosia, [No. 2, 



Artllaria Knrz, has not been accepted as a valid genus by Baker ' 

 or by the editors of the Index Kewensis. The species on which it is 

 founded was treated by Roxburgh, 8 who has left a coloured drawing of 

 the plant in Herb. Calcutta, as a Sophora. Wight has reproduced this 

 figure 3 and in discussing it lias suggested that the plant is nearer to 

 Ormosia than to Sophora but that, owing to its having a fleshy pod, it is 

 perhaps a distinct genus. This genus he refrained from fouuding because 

 the account given by Roxburgh of the arillus was not clear to him. 

 Knrz has confirmed and amplified Roxburgh's account of the arillus 

 and has therefore provided the generic description that Wight did not 

 venture to give. Taubert has adopted Kurz's genus, though his attitude 

 may require to be discounted to some extent, for lie at the same time 

 retains among the Ormosias the species on which Arillaria is based. 4 " 

 In spite of the views expressed by Wight, Kurz and Taubert the writer 

 agrees with Baker and Baillon 6 in thinking that the species may quite 

 well be accomodated in Ormosia, though he nevertheless thinks the 

 characters of the species (Ormosia robusta) are such as to entitle it to 

 the rank of a subgenus. 



Bentham has, for convenience, divided the Brazilian species of the 

 genus into two groups, 6 Goncolores or species with the leaflets glabrous 

 to the naked eye on both sides except perhaps, the midrib, and with the 

 leaves not much paler beneath than above, and Discolores with the leaves 

 paler beneath and there manifestly puberulous silky or tomentose. Baker 

 has also, in essence, adopted this method of subdividing the genus and 

 Taubert has even formally adopted Bentham's groups as sections and 

 applied them to the whole genus. This subdivision, however, does not 

 always permit species that are naturally closely related to remain 

 together and it is not improbable that a classification which depends 

 more on the characters derived from fruit and seed and less on characters 

 obtained from the shade of green and the degree of tomentum of the 

 leaves will in future be found more satisfactory. 



Below a purely tentative scheme of classification is briefly 

 sketched : — 



Pod with woody valves ; seeds scarlet with or without a black spot near the 

 hilum not enveloped in an aril ; Sub-gen. Toulichiba. 

 Leaf-rachis bearing at its tip the distal pair of leaflets as well as the terminal 

 leaflet ; Sect. Ch^enolobium. 



I Hooker, Flor. Brit. Ind. ii. 252 (1878). 



* Roxburgh, Hortus Bengalensis 31 (1814). 

 S Wight, Icones t. 245 (1840). 



* Eogler Naturlich. Pflanzenfam. iii. 3. 194 (1894). 



* Baillon, Hist, des Plantes ii. 362(1869). 



* Martius, Flora Brasil. xy. 1. 315 (1862). 



