PHILIPPINE URTICACEAE. 
469 
Distribution of Urticaceae in the Philippines, etc. — Continued. 
Some i of these differences are doubtless due to the more radical or 
more conservative tendencies of the workers : ultimately, there is every 
probability that the Malay Archipelago will be found far to excel all of the 
other regions here enumerated in the number of its species. The above 
distribution of the Malay species between Elatostema, Elatostematoides, 
and Pellionia is very rough : in many cases, the descriptions are quite 
insufficient to enable an accurate opinion to be formed. 
Taken as a whole, the affinities of Philippine Urticaceae are undoubt- 
edly Malayan, only one genus found here being unreported from the 
Malay Islands. This is Oliamabainia , which, is known from India and 
China. Of the other genera, Urtica is cosmopolitan, but the only species 
here is Malayan : Laportea occurs, in all the continents except Europe, 
and some of our species have their closest alliance with those of India, 
but more with those of Malaya: Pilea and Boehmeria are tropical or 
subtropical, in the former, is the one species which can positively be said 
to be introduced only, P. microphylla (Linn.) Liebm. : another species 
here described as P. humilis, is very closely allied to P. peploides, which 
ranges from the Galapagos Islands across Oceania and Asia to western 
Africa ; the affinities of the other species are with those of India, Formosa 
or Malaya. Boehmeria nivea (Linn.) Gaudich. is doubtless introduced, 
but the forms from Sabtan Island seem to fall under the variety tena- 
cissirna, whose other distribution is such that it may well be indigenous : 
the other species show alliances with those of India', Malaya, and Formosa. 
Two other genera are found in the Tropics of both America and the 
5 Hook. f. El. Br. Ind. 5 (1888) 477, 547-594. 
3 Boer 1. Handl. Kenn. FI. Ned. Ind. 3 (1900) 372-381: Schum. & Lauterb. 
Nachtr. FI. Deutsch. Schutz. Siidsee (1905) 251-256: with some changes. 
4 Forbes & Hemsl. in Journ. Linn. Soc.'Bot. 26 (1899) 471-492, 36 (1905) 
461, 481, 488, 501, 516, 527, 529. 
6 Kawakami List PI. Formosa (1910) 103-108. 
