NOTES ON D1PTEROCARPS. 



No. 4. On the Embryo, Seedling* and Position 

 of the Flowers in various Species. 



By I. H. Buekill. 



This note deals, with the shape of the mature embryo, and 

 with the characters of the seedling in a small number of species of 

 the order Dipteroearpaceae : it deals also in a lesser measure with 

 the position which the flowers assume when open. The observa- 

 tions were made and are recorded because it is believed that by a 

 full knowledge of the morphology of the young plant, light will 

 be cast upon the tangle which the genera of the order now present. 

 In a lesser measure the position of the flower may possibly assist; 

 and at any rate information concerning it is worth collecting. 



Most of the facts in this note were go£ together by visits 

 to Penang in the months of July, October and December, 

 1918: such as were not, are enumerated in the footnote* below. 

 It happened that the year, 1918, was unusually favourable to 

 the Dipterocarps in Penang, where almost every local species 

 flowered : and there Mr. Mohamed HanifT, of the Waterfall Gardens, 

 observed and. collected for me between my visits. To him for very 

 much assistance, I tender my best thanks. I tender my best thanks, 

 also, to Dr. F. W. Foxworthy, Mr. W. E. Kinsey and other Forest 

 Officers for supplies of fresh seed from several parts of the Penin- 

 sula, which seed was put into cultivation in the Botanic Gardens, 

 Singapore. Xo cultivation, however^ returned the equivalent of 

 days spent in the forests when the seeds were falling and germinat- 

 ing under natural conditions ; for the seedling is so exacting in its 

 demands that without experimenting on a very large scale culti- 

 vation often fails to supply adequate material. 



The forest is undoubtedly the place in which to study the 

 Dipterocarps. The earlier investigators were not able to realise 

 that fully, not even collectively, and have left much to be done. 

 The first of the workers worked, perforce, in European institu- 

 tions remote from tropical nature, with material preserved by dry- 

 ing and chiefly collected by others. They constructed such classifi- 



The following list gives the names of the plants which were not studied in 

 Penang, but in Singapore : 



Shorea gratissima Dyer, S. leprosula Miq. Balanocarpus Zcilanjbus Thw., 

 and Pachynocarpus Wallichii, King species wild or long established in the Bot- 

 anic Gardens, Singapore. Hopea Mengarawan, Miq., wild in Singapore, island. 

 Dipterocarpus cornutus, and Dyer, Hopea Curtisii, King, seeds grown from 

 Penang Dipterocarpus crinitus, Dyer, D. grandiflorus, Blanco, D. Kerrii, King 

 and Dryobalanops aromatica, Gaertn.f., seeds grown from Negri Sembilan, 



Dipterocarpus Scorteohinii, King, and D. ep. seeds grown »from Selangor., 

 Jour. Straits Branch R. A. Soc. No. 81, 1920. 



