508 D. Praiii — Some additional Leguminosse. [No. 2, 



8. Acacia Suma Buch.-Ham. in Wall. Cat. 5227 C. ; Voigt, Hort. 

 Suburb. 260 ; Kurz ex Brand. For. Fl. 187. 



Why Kurz should be quoted as the authority for this species is not clear; 

 he himself (see For. Flor. Brit. Burm. i. 421) attributes the authorship to Buchanan- 

 Hamilton. The Index Kewensis gives the citation in such a manner as to make it 

 appear that A. Suma Ham. and A. Suma Kurz are different plants ; it permits the 

 latter to stand and reduces the former to A. Sundra. However, the citation in the 

 Index shows that it is " A. Sundra Wall.," not A. Sundra DC. to which A. Suma 

 Ham. is equivalent, and as it immediately afterwards reduces " A Sundra Wall." to 

 A. Suma, the Index corrects itself. Obviously, however, the authority to be cited is 

 Hamilton, not Kurz. 



Mr. Baker's diagnosis of the species is very effective and settles once for all 

 the identity and the specific rank of " Suma " as opposed to what may be termed 

 the " Khairs." 



9. Acacia Catechu Willd. 



10. Acacia Sundra DC. 



There has always been some difficulty in deciding how many different forms of 

 Kutch or Khair occur in India. Wight and Arnott seem to recognise only two, A. 

 Catechu and A. Sundra. But their A. Catechu is A. Suma (the true A. Catechu apparent- 

 ly does not occur in South India at all, and there are certainly no specimens of it 

 in Wight's herbarium) ; Suma is not a Khair, so that in reality Wight and Arnott only 

 deal with one Khair. A. Suma, as Mr. Baker has clearly shown, cannot be confused 

 with any of the " Khairs ; " it has white bark and white flowers, and has petals 

 hardly longer than the downy calyx ; it may then be once for all definitely separated 

 from the others. 



Of these others Eoxburgh recognised three, A. Catechu, A. catechuoides, and A. 

 Sundra ; Baker, reducing A. catechuoides to A. Catechu and retaining A. Sundra as 

 a species, recognises two; Kurz (For. Flor. Brit. Burma i. 422), recognises but one 

 species, A. Catechu, though he divides it into two varieties which he terms Catechu 

 proper and Sundra ; these varieties correspond exactly to the two species given by 

 Mr. Baker, for under Catechu proper Kurz mixes the A. Catechu and the A. catechuoides 

 of Roxburgh. That Roxburgh was right is, however, very apparent when large suites 

 of specimens, such as are preserved in the Calcutta Herbarium, are available for 

 study. There are three equally distinct and very easily separable forms, exactly as 

 Roxburgh pointed out, and though the writer, following Kurz, is only able to see in 

 them different forms of one species, or at most three species of secondary rank, he 

 is quite satisfied that all three are entitled to equal consideration. 



The diagnosis of these forms is as follows : — 

 Bark white, calyx downy, not much shorter than 



petals... ... ... ... 1. A.SumaH&m. 



Bark brown, calyx less than half as long as 



petals... ... ... ... 2. A. Catechu Willd. : Kurz. 



a. Calyx, petals and rachis covered with spreading hairs ( = A. Catechu Willd). 



b. Calyx and petals glabrous, rachis puberulous ( — A. catechuoides Bth). 



c. Calyx, petals and rachis all glabrous ( = A Sundra DC). 



