1897.] D. Prain — Some additional Leguminosje. 447 



retuse, flowers in distinctly pednncled axillary cymes with glabrous or 

 minutely pubernlous branches, pedicels very short, pefal-claws shorter 

 than calyx, ovary pilose, pod ovate-oblong, 1 -seeded, indurated and rugose 

 opposite the seed. D. tamarindi folia Roxb. Flor. Ind. iii. 233 in part; 

 Wight Ic. t. 242 (as to the fruit). D. polyphylla Benth. PI. Jungh. 

 256, in part. Derris pinnata Lour. FL Gochinch. 432 (possibly). 



Khasia ; 2-4000 feet, G. Mann ! at Shampung, Collett ! at Maoksan- 

 dram, Clarke ! Distrib. China. 



Branches sparsely clothed with fine brown pubescence. Leaves 3-6 in. long, 

 leaflets a little like those of D. tamarindifolia, but usually rather shorter and always 

 narrower besides differing in not being oblique. Cymes 1-2 in. long, slender. 

 Flowers small hardly ± in. long. Pod T5-2 in. long, f in. wide, " swelled, scabrous, 

 where the single seed is lodged " (Roxburgh). 



Mr. Kurz has already pointed out in the Society's Journal (vol. xlv. pt. 2, 

 p. 281) that there is something seriously amiss in the identification of D. rufa Grah. 

 and D. multijuga Grah. with D tamarindifolia Eoxb. That the flowers and foliage of 

 D. tamarindifolia, as described by Roxburgh and ' as figured by him in the plate 

 subsequently published in Wight's Icones t. 242, are those of D. rufa and of D. 

 multijuga is certainly true. But the fruit described and figured by Roxburgh is, as 

 Kurz was the first to remark, widely different. Mr. Kurz was apparently inclined 

 to suppose that the Assam (or Sylhet) plant described by Roxburgh might have 

 different fruit from that of the Burmese one. This supposition was only natural 

 since a mixture of flowers of one species with fruit of another is an accident of 

 which, such was his care and accuracy, there is hardly an instance in the whole of 

 Roxburgh's work. The present is, however, such an instance. There are now 

 at Calcutta examples of the pods of D. tamarindifolia from every locality between 

 the Himalayas and the Malaya Archipelago and they never differ in any respect. 

 Moreover, since Mr. Kurz wrote, both Mr. Mann and Genl. Collett have collected 

 in the Khasia hills a plant that has a pod which accords exactly with Roxburgh's 

 description and figure ; this plant proves an analysis to be in all respects the same 

 as the Chinese D. Milletti. Mr. Clarke too has collected specimens with the same 

 pods ; his plant only differs from Mann's and Collett's in having leaflets rather 

 broader in proportion to their length. The figured pod in Wight's plate is, as in the 

 original coloured drawing, shown detached. Probably what happened was that 

 Roxburgh's living plants of D. tamarindifolia, did not produce fruits in the Calcutta 

 garden, and that one of the fruits sent by a correspondent from Silhet as those of 

 Ketee, which is the vernacular name that Roxburgh quotes for B. tamarindifolia, 

 was drawn along-side the figure made from a living plant. But the fruit so figured, 

 instead of belonging to D. tamarindifolia, was that of the similar, but still very 

 different, species just described. 



It has been usual to quote Derris pinnata. Lour, as the equivalent of D. tamarin- 

 difolia. The latest author to do this is Dr. Kuntze (Rev. Gen. PI. i. 159) and on this 

 assumption, for it is no more, he uses the specific name first used by Loureiro instead 

 of that used by Roxburgh. This is but another instance of bibliographic alteration 

 of name without reference to authentic specimens. Loureiro's plant had glabrous 

 leaflets and therefore, unless it was misdescribed by Loureiro, an assumption that 

 no one has the slightest right to make, it cannot be D. tamarindifolia. That it may 

 be D. Milletti is not impossible, but so far no one has given such an account of the 



