PHILIPPINE URTICACEAE. 
521 
far as the leaves and the male plant are concerned. The peduncled female re- 
ceptacles are a better distinction, the question remaining as to their validity as 
a specific character. In E. luzonense, as previously stated, it seems of no value. 
He has further sent me a specimen of E. obtusum, Duthie 3383, Kumaon, west 
Himalayas, and while I can n'ot but agree as to the vegetative similarity, with 
the addition that it is even nearer E. filicaule, the pistillate receptacles do seem 
quite distinct. . The pedicels are so short that little emphasis can be laid on them, 
but the receptacles themselves are very different. The bracts are pubescent but 
very much less so than in E. delicatulum, the achenes seem to be solitary, and are 
from nearly 2 ,mm to 2.5 mm long. Should the two species be held identical, E. 
delicatulum is the older name. Procris obtusa Wall. Cat. is presumably a nomen 
nudum, and Elatostema obtusum Wedd., so far as the Ann. Sci. Nat. is concerned, 
being based on it alone, can have no higher status. E. delicatulum comes two 
places lower on the same page, but has a sufficient description. 
As regards E. glaucescens, the plants on Cuming 629 belonging to it can be 
distinguished by their color, and have excellent matches in Whitford 1 7 which 
contains the same mixture as that of Cuming, and in Yoder 226: my collections 
do not show the color character, but have no other differentiating features. 
On the question of the distinctness of E. delicatulum and E. glaucescens, there 
is much room for difference of opinion, and the following field observations may 
be of assistance. Both, at least as here interpreted, grow in considerable abun- 
dance, on rocks, sometimes wet, sometimes fairly dry, in many places on both 
branches of the Dampalit gorge, near Los Banos : both may be found on the same 
rock, though this is unusual. Ordinarily, E. delicatulum, is well described by 
the name, the leaves are pale, their dentations very obtuse, indeed, many leaves 
are entire; all staminate receptacles found contained very few flowers, with the 
lanceolate bracts slenderly acuminate: E. glaucescens is more robust, with thicker, 
darker-colored leaves, and the dentations are acute ; their staminate receptacles 
were always larger, the bracts somewhat broader, still acuminate, but more 
shortly and stoutly: Weddell, on the contrary, describes them as few-flowered. It 
is further to be noted that in drying the leaf-dentations of E. delicatulum may 
shrink until it is very difficult to distinguish them from those of E. glaucescens : 
there is room for suspicion that variation in moisture conditions may have been 
responsible for these differences in the living plants, but apparently E. glaucescens 
preferred the moister situations, so far as any differences could be observed. 
Of the very close alliance of E. delicatum and E. delicatulum there is no 
doubt. Vegetatively, they are quite the same, and the staminate receptacles are 
very similar, but not identical. 
Some of those of E. delicatum are distinctly longer-peduncled and more pilose, 
larger with longer bracts; on the other hand, they are older than any of E. deli- 
catulum available for comparison : the pistillate receptacles of E. delicatum, 
when collected, may yield distinguishing characters, but at present it does not 
seem advisable to keep them apart. The latest collections still further diminish 
the difference. 
From its description, this is the best disposition of Dorstema pubescens Blanco. 
Elatostema luzonense has very i recently been found near Pasig, whence Blanco 
obtained his plants, and is another probability, but the size assigned to them 
would better suit E. delicatulum. 
12. Elatostema glaucescens Wedd. in Arch. Mus. Paris 9 (1856) 325; DC. 
Prodr. 1 6 1 (1869) 187. 
E. sessile var. brongniartianum Merr. in Philip. Journ. Sci. 1 (1906) Suppl. 
48, pro parte, quoad Whitford 174, pro parte. 
