The Philippine Journal op Science, C. Botany. 
Vol. VII, No. 6, December, 1912. 
ON THE IDENTITY OF EVODIA TRIPHYLLA. 
By E. D. Merrill.* 
{From the Botanical Section of the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of 
Science, Manila, P. I.) 
It not infrequently happens in taxonomy that, due to im- 
perfect original descriptions, nonaccessibility of type or typical 
material to later botanists, or other reasons, the current con- 
ception of a particular species is quite different from that origin- 
ally intended by its author. An excellent illustration of this 
is to be found in the case of Evoclia triphylla DC., which, on 
examination of the type, proves not to be an Evodia at all, but a 
species of the allied genus Melicope. As the species has passed 
in botanic literature for about ninety years as a true Evodia, 
and has been credited with the extended range of Tenasserim 
and Burma to China, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaya, due 
to misinterpretation of Fagara triphylla Lam., it is only reason- 
able to suppose that the error will persist in some quarters for 
some time in the future. 
In the year 1788, Lamarck ^ described as a new species Fagara 
triphylla, which DeCandolle later transferred to the genus 
Evodia, in which it has been retained by all botanists up 
to the present time, and to it many species described by 
other authors have been reduced as synonyms, mostly erro- 
neously. Evodia triphylla DC. has been confused with E. rox- 
burghiana Benth., by many authors, a species which it certainly 
very closely resembles in gross characters, but which is really 
generically distinct. Hooker f.^ retains Evodia roxhurghiana 
Benth. and E. triphylla DC. as distinct species, but notes that 
there is some doubt as to which name the former should bear 
because of the obscurity of Evodia triphylla DC. Guillaumin ® 
* Associate Professor of Botany, University of the Philippines. 
'Encycl. 2 (1788) 447. 
» FI. Brit. Ind. 1 (1875) 488. 
® Lecomte FI. Gen. Indo-chine 1 (1911) 632. 
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