70 On Pandanophyllum and allied genera. [No. 2, 



On Pandanophyllum and allied genera, especially those occurring 

 in the Indian Archipelago ; hy S. Kurz, Esq., Curator of the 

 Calcutta Herbarium. 



[Received and read 7th October, 1868.] 



The genus Pandanophyllum, established in 1844, by Dr. Hasskarl 

 in his catalogue of the plants, cultivated in the Botanic gardens at 

 Buitenzorg (p. 297) remained for a long time but imperfectly known, 

 until Dr. Thwaites in his Ceylon plants, and Professor Ondemans in 

 von Mohl and Schlechtendal's " Botanische Zeitung" directed the 

 attention of botanists to this interesting genus of tropical plants. 



Some time ago I noticed, in Professor Miquel's supplement to the 

 flora of Sumatra, several species which that author had placed in the 

 genus Lepironia, but which doubtless are congeners oh Pandano- 

 pthyllum. This circumstance has induced me to examine all the 

 Indian species belonging to Pandanophyllum and its allies, and at 

 the same time to describe those species, which occur in the Indian 

 Archipelago, as far as the materials at my disposal allow it. In 

 the present communication, I shall briefly state the results which 

 I have thus obtained, trusting that they will be acceptable to Indian 

 botanists. The new genus, Tlioracostachyum, of which I shall give 

 a detailed characteristic in the course of this paper, forms to a certain 

 extent a connecting link between Hypolytrum and Lepironia, but it 

 is sufficiently distinct from both of them, and deserves to be treated as 

 an independent genus of Cyperace^. 



Scirpodendron, established by the late Zippelius in the Herbarium 

 of the Botanic gardens at Buitenzorg, is the most gigantic of all 

 the Cyperace^; I am acquainted with and, when destitute of flowers, 

 it is hardly to be distinguished from stemless screw-pines. 



HYPOLYTRE,E, N. E. 



Spicae compositae squamis undique imbricatis sqamulis squamae 

 ut plurimum contrarie instructis ; spiculae solitariae, rarius ternae, 

 squama opposita, obtectae, compressae, 1 — multiflorae, diclines v. raro 

 hermaphroditae ; flosculi masculi monandri, uni-squamulati, saepius 

 ad squamulam solam reducti ; flosculus femineus centralis v. excentri- 



