LEGUMINOSAE 



277 



MUCUNA * Adanson 



MUCUNA GIGANTEA (Willd.) DC. Prodr. 2 (1825) 405. 



Dolichos giganteus Willd. Sp. PI. 3 (1800) 1041. 



Carpopogon giganteum Roxb. Hort. Beng. (1814) 54. 



Zoopthalmum giganteum Prain in Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 66 2 (1897) 68. 



Lobus litoralis Rumph. Herb. Amb. 5: 10, t. 6. 

 Amboina, Wae, Robinson PI. Rumph. Amb. 567, November 26, 1913, along 

 the seashore, locally known as bharu laut. 



This was erroneously reduced by Loureiro, Fl. Cochinch. 

 (1790) 456, to Citta nigricans Lour. = Mucuna nigricans (Lour.) 

 Steud. Loureiro's species was described from Cochin-China 

 material, and is entirely different from the plant that Rumphius 

 described and figured, belonging in the section Citta, the pods 

 with prominent oblique plaits across their faces. Most authors 

 who have had occasion to cite the Rumphian figure have followed 

 Loureiro's erroneous reduction. The forms indicated by Rumph- 

 ius, 1. c, as nigra and maculata are probably merely variants 

 of this widely distributed species. 



MUCUNA PRURIENS (Linn.) DC. Prodr. 2 (1825) 405. 



Dolichos pruriens Linn, in Stickman Herb. Amb. (1754) 23, Amoen. 



Acad. 4 (1759) 132, Syst. ed. 10 (1759) 1162 (type!). 

 Stizolobium pruriens Medic, in Vorles. Churpf. Phys. Ges. 2 (1797) 

 399. 



Carpopogon pruriens Roxb. Hort. Beng. (1814) 54. 

 Negretia pruriens Blanco Fl. Filip. ed. 2 (1845) 411. 

 Cacara pruritus Rumph. Herb. Amb. 5: 393, t. H2. 



This species is not represented in our Amboina collections, 

 but I have before me a single pod of the species originating 

 in Amboina, received from the botanic garden, Buitenzorg, Java, 

 through Prof. C. V. Piper, of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture; it is apparently identical with the widely dis- 

 tributed, low-altitude, Philippine form, but is not the same as 

 much of the material in various herbaria labelled Mucuna pru- 

 riens DC. The Rumphian figure and description are the whole 

 basis of Dolichos pruriens Linn., and the species must ac- 

 cordingly be interpreted from it. In the second edition of his 

 Species Plantarum (1763) 1019, Linnaeus added certain ref- 

 erences, to Jacquin, to Sloane, and perhaps the one to Rheede, that 

 represent a species quite different from the Philippine and 

 Moluccan Mucuna pruriens (Linn.) DC, and from these 

 references the species has, by most authors, been erroneously 

 interpreted. 



* Retained name, Vienna Code; Zoopthamnum P. Br. and Stizolobium P. 

 Br. (1756) are older. 



