404< D. Prain — Some additional Loguminosce. [No. 2, 



tion that it is a wild species in India. This it most certainly is not ; even as an 

 escape it is of rare occurrence. In connection with this it may be mentioned that 

 in one of the few unequivocal instances of 'escape' among Herb. Calcutta examples, 

 (specimens collected by Mr. Kurz on the banks of the Ganges at Sahebganj) the 

 plant, instead of having suberect, has long trailing stems ; but for their greater 

 hispidity the specimens might well pass as representing the wild G. ussuriensis. 

 Very probably, therefore, Mr. Maximowicz' suspicion that the Soy is only a culti- 

 vated variety of the Ussuri plant may be correct. 



59. TERAMNUS Sw. ' 

 2. Teramnus flexilis Bth, 



Add to synonyms of F. B. I. : — Glycine oxyphylla Grah. in Wall.' 

 Cat. 5522. Galactia ? oxyphylla Bth. in Plant. Jnnah. 233. Teramnus 

 oxyphylla Kurz in Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xlv. pt. 2. 254. 



60. MUCUNA Adans. 



The genus Mucuna Adans. is admittedly the same as the genus Stizolobium 

 Pers. ; the name given by Adanson in 1763 is therefore much older than that used by 

 Persoonin 1807. By Persoon's own showing, however, the name Stizolobium did not 

 originate with him but was first used by P. Browne in his History of Jamaica in 

 1756. There seems then, at first sight, as Dr. Otto Kuntze remarks (Rev. Gen. Plant. 

 v. 206) no reason why the name Stizolobium should be suppressed. Dr Kuntze 

 has therefore proposed to recognise our genus Mucuna as Stizolobium P. Br. ; this 

 gives him the opportunity of enumerating all the species hitherto known, except 

 those described by Persoon, as Kuntzean species. 



But the subject bears closer examination. It is to be noted that the name 

 Stizolobium was applied by Browne exclusively to species with seeds that have a 

 small hilum. The only species of Mucuna (as now understood) with seeds having 

 a large annular hilum, that Browne knew, was treated by him as the type of a 

 distinct genus which he named Zoophthalmum. Adanson, it is true, in his generic 

 description ascribes to the genus as a whole the seeds characteristic only of 

 Browne's Zoophthalmum, but his citations show that he included in it one plant 

 belonging to Zoophthalmum and another plant belonging to Stizolobium. There is 

 therefore no doubt that the oldest name for the genus as a whole is, as De 

 Candolle in Prodr. ii. 404 has indicated, the name Mucuna Adans. Persoon used 

 the name Stizolobium, not in the sense of P. Browne, but as the precise equi- 

 valent of Mucuna Adans. And Kuntze's remark that Bentham and Hooker in 

 the Genera Plantarum " incorrectly " attribute the name Stizolobium to Persoon 

 is, to say the least, disingenuous. If the two "genera" of P. Browne are to 

 be considered, as Kuntze apparently agrees to consider them, only parts of one 

 genus, then the oldest name for that conjoint genus is Mucuna Adans. To quote 

 as the name of the enlaiged genus the word Stizolobium and to give as the authority 

 for the name in this sense the reference by P. Browne, is to say and to claim some- 

 thing quite other than was said or claimed by the author of the name. Per- 

 eoon can be quoted as the authority for the word in precisely this sense, but 

 when quoted on Persoon's authority the name is not so old as the name Mucuna.* 



* One may ask why, while he was about it, Dr. Kuntze did not try to revive the 

 name Parrana of Rumphius, which is, no doubt, an older name for a species of 

 Mucuna than any that Kuntze mentions. 



