IX, C, 4 
Merrill: Philippine Plants, X 
315 
The first species of the genus to be found in the Philippines, and remark- 
able among the few members of the genus in its very tardily dehiscent 
follicles. In my material, which consists of fallen leaves and follicles, the 
seeds are nearly mature, yet the follicles scarcely show a sign of opening. 
MELOCHIA Dillenius 
MELOCHIA UMBELLATA (Houtt.) comb. nov. 
Visenia umbellata Houtt. Handl. 8 (1777) 309. 
Wisenia indica Gmel. Syst. 2 (1791) 515. 
Melochia arbor ea Blanco FI. Filip. (1837) 524. 
Melochia indica A. Gray ex F.-Vill. Novis. App. (1880) 29; K. Sch. in 
Engl. Bot. Jahrb. 9 (1887) 209. 
This widely distributed and much-named plant has a peculiarly compli- 
cated synonymy, and for the last twenty years has been considered by many 
botanists, after K. Schumann, under a specific name that was neither pub- 
lished by the original author Houttuyn under Visenia, as V. indica, and 
was never transferred to Melochia, as M. indica, by A. Gray until the 
transfer was made by F.-Villar and K. Schumann and wrongly credited to 
Gray. Houttuyn in 1777 published the species as Visenia umbellata, and 
this is apparently the oldest valid specific name. Gmelin seems to have 
made the first use of the specific name indica, for he publishes it as Wisenia 
indica with a reference to Christmann and Panzer’s German edition of 
Houttuyn’s work Vol. 6 (1780), where, however, the species appears as 
Visenia umbellata. Gmelin, then, simply proposed a new specific name, 
indica, to replace that proposed by Houttuyn. Hasskarl 6 seems to have 
been the first author to credit the combination Visenia indica to Houttuyn, 
whieh he later repeated in his Platae Javanicae Rariores, from whence it 
passed into Miquel’s Flora Indiae Batavae and other works. K. Schumann 
manifestly took up the specific name from Miquel. 
Asa Gray never published the combination “Melochia indica (Houtt.) 
A. Gray” in the Botany of the Wilkes Expedition as credited to him by 
K. Schumann* but simply indicates that: “Visenia cannot be generically 
distinguished from Melochia.” K. Schumann was, hence, in error both in 
taking up the specific name indica, and in crediting its transfer to Melochia 
to A. Gray. Visenia umbellata Houtt. seems to supply the correct specific 
name, under Melochia, for this very common and widely distributed species, 
and is accordingly here taken up. 
Fernandez-Villar is the first author actually to make the combination 
Melochia indica, but his publication of the combination has been entirely 
overlooked by later authors, and does not appear in Index Kewensis. In 
the Novissima Appendix to the third edition of Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas 
(1880) 29 the name Melochia indica appears, but is erroneously credited 
to A. Gray on the authority of Bentham & Hooker f. Gen. PI. 1 (1862) 
224. Bentham & Hooker f., however, do not make the transfer, but simply 
state: “Cetera omnia Riedleiae conveninunt et monente Grayo Viseniam 
pro sectione Melochiae potius quam genere proprio habemus.” 
Other synonyms of this species are: Visenia tomentosa Miq., Riedleia 
tiliaefolia DC., R. velutina DC., Glossospermum velutinum Wall., G. cor- 
Tijdschr. Nat. Gesch. 12 (1845) 122. 
Engl. Bot. Jahrb. 9 (1887) 209. 
