28 



RUMPHIUS'S HERBARIUM AMBOINENSE 



In very many cases Loureiro took his specific name from Rumph- 

 ius, yet in not a single case is a species described by Loureiro 

 to be interpreted by the reference to Rumphius, as his descrip- 

 tions were not based on data supplied by the Herbarium 

 Amboinense, but on actual specimens from Cochin-China or 

 southern China. 



We find the same condition in Burman f., Flora Indica (1768), 

 where Burman's conception of the species proposed was not 

 gained from the Rumphian synonym cited, often the only one 

 given, so much as from actual specimens from Java or from 

 some other part of the Indo-Malayan region; in few cases are 

 Burman's species, as published in his Flora Indica, to be typified 

 by the Rumphian reference cited. In the early volumes of 

 Lamarck's Encyclopedic we find likewise numerous cases where 

 species actually described from specimens originating in the 

 Mascarene Islands, in the Philippines, and in other regions 

 remote from Amboina are supplied with a Rumphian synonym, 

 which usually has proved to be misplaced. Error after error 

 has crept into systematic botany by interpretation of species by 

 a Rumphian synonym, wrongly placed, rather than by consulta- 

 tion of the actual type specimen. These errors, once published, 

 have been perpetuated by other authors, sometimes because of 

 failure to interpret types properly, sometimes because of lack 

 of interest in problems of nomenclature, sometimes because of 

 non-accessibility of type specimens for purposes of comparison, 

 and for other reasons. By way of illustration I need cite only 

 one or two extreme cases. 



The type of Fagara triphylla Lam. is a Philippine specimen 

 collected by Sonnerat, and a recent examination of it in Lamarck's 

 herbarium at the Museum d'histoire Naturelle, Paris, shows 

 it to be identical with the endemic Philippine Melicope luzonensis 

 Engl. De Candolle, however, apparently interpreting Fagara tri- 

 phylla Lam. chiefly from the Rumphian synonym, Ampacus 

 angustifolius Rumph., cited by Lamarck in the original descrip- 

 tion, transferred it to Evodia as Evodia triphylla DC. ; and later 

 authors, also interpreting it from the Rumphian synonym, have 

 given Evodia triphylla (Lam.) DC. a range extending from 

 India to Japan southward through Malaya to New Guinea. In 

 clearing up this question of synonymy * I have shown that 

 Fagara triphylla ~LsLm.=Evodia triphylla ~DC.=Melicope triphylla 

 Merr. is a species confined to the Philippines; that Evodia tri- 



* On the identity of Evodia triphylla DC. Philip. Journ. Sci. 7 (1912) 

 Bot. 373-378. 



