466 
ROBINSON. 
at least two groups are marked out which are easily distinguished one 
from the other : whereas the difference in general appearance between the 
entire-leaved and serrate-leaved species of Pouzolzia is considerable apart 
from this character, while the latter in habit can not be distinguished from 
Boehmeria ; in the most natural character, that of the styles, the interval 
is very nearly bridged, even in our species. 
Some workers upon Malayan Urticaceae have had great difficulty in 
separating the three genera Procris, Elatostema, and Pellionia. For 
their purposes and ours, the difficulty is real if merely the existing keys 
are studied, that in the Genera Plantarum excepted, but disappears on 
a study of the flowers and inflorescences of the plants themselves. 
However, it does not seem possible to maintain the genus Elatostema with 
the limits assigned to it by "Weddell. He left it as a genus with 
involucrate or exinvolucrate receptacles, and a pistillate perianth 3- to 
5-merous. Among Malay-Philippine species, the difficulty is with a 
group where the inflorescence on casual examination seems to form a 
receptacle but is merely an exinvolucrate cyme in nearly all cases greatly 
condensed. Weddell included the species known to him in Elatostema; 
they caused Hallier to reduce both Procris and Pellionia to Elatostema; 
Boerlage placed them in Pellionia. The last is the true alliance, but the 
group is here held to be sufficiently distinct from that genus, to be 
separated under the name Elatostematoides. To the writer, the only 
question is whether it should be considered a genus or a very distinct sub- 
genus under Pellionia. If Androsyce, made by Weddell a subgenus of 
Elatostema, were found within the Philippines, it would unhesitatingly be 
treated as entitled to' generic rank. 
Another genus, Astrothalamus, is proposed for a species known from 
the Mariannes, Philippines, and Borneo, which was placed by Weddell 
and the writer previously in Maoutia, by both with doubt. The distin- 
guishing characters .lie in the pistillate inflorescence, which Weddell did 
not see, and seem amply sufficient to maintain the new status 'assigned. 
i Several of the more serious bibliographic problems have arisen through 
the adoption by Weddell of manuscript names, or maintenance by him 
of insufficiently published names in preference to suitably published ones 
of later date. This is especially the case with names appended to plates 
in Gaudichaud’s Botanique du voyage Bonite. Weddell 1 
.states that the plates were issued between 1839 and 1846, but they were 
not accompanied by generic or specific diagnoses, and the explanations 
of the plates did not appear till 1866. These genera are here dated from 
the years in which they were taken up by Weddell. Although all cases 
of the kind are discussed under the genera affected-, a brief summary is 
here made of those where the name is likely to be the subject of dispute. 
^DC. Prodr. 16 1 : 235. £ 
