205 



Plethiandra Sahebii, a new Melastomacea 

 from Sarawak, described. 



By I. H. Buekill. 



Flower of Plethiandra Sahebii seen from the front X 3. 



The genus Plethiandra was created by Sir Joseph Hooker in 

 1867 for a plant collected by Motley on "Gunong Say/' ( ?) Sarawak. 

 He placed it in the Astronieae following after the genus Kibessia. 

 Baillon, Natural History of Plants, VII, 1881, p. 63, Krasser in 

 Engler's Pflanzenfamilien, III. Abt. 7, 1893, p. 196, and Cogniaux 

 in De Candolle's Monograyhiae Phanerogamarum, VII. 1891, p. 

 1111, were unable to add anything to what Sir Joseph had done: 

 so that the genus remained — as he had left it — of one little-known 

 species, described, so Stapf testifies, upon " a rather poor specmen." 

 Cogniaux, however, defined a genus Medinillopsis, I.e. p. f^ , with 

 two species, — M . Beceariana from Sarawak, and M . sessiliftora from 

 Singapore, both collected by Beccari: and this genus Stapf in 

 Hooker's Icones Plantarum, plate 2418 (1896), reduced to Ple- 

 thiandra. 



Stapf had added to the genus two years earlier, a new species, 

 P. Hookeri, from the mountain of Kinabalu (Trans. Linn. Soc. 

 London, Botany. IV. 1894, p. 163), before he reduced Medinillopsis, 

 and at the time of reducing it he described also P. rejangensis, P. 

 sessilis, and P. cuneata, all from Haviland's Bornean collections, 

 so raising the number of species to seven, six from Borneo and one 

 from Singapore. Further be suggested that Cogniaux's Medinilla 

 robnsta is also a Plethiandra. 



In adding to these another new species, I take the opportunity 

 of figuring in outline from life its flower; for good as is the draw- 

 ing of P. Hookeri in the Icones it was made from dried specimens, 

 which do not permit the positions assumed by the stamens and 

 stigma to be determined : and the flower is given as less markedly 

 bisymmetric than it is likely to be. 



Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc, No. 77, 1 91 7. 



