NOTES ON PHILIPPINE EUPHORBIACEAE. 
381 
2, shortly united below, 2-fid, the four resulting lobes thick, 1 
mm long or less; ovary 2-celled, cells 1-ovuled, puberulent. 
Fruits when nearly mature ellipsoid, 1-celled, 1-seeded, 2.5 cm 
long, not at all sulcate and not formed of cocci, but of four 
valves which are subequal, oblong-elliptic, acute at both ends, 
crustaceous, very densely and softly puberulent externally with 
a pale indumentum. Seed (immature) 2 cm long. 
Mindoro, in hill forests south of Lake Naujan, For. Bur. 6851 Mer- 
ritt, April 6, 1907, with very young fruits, altitude 80 meters. Leyte, 
near Ormoc, For. Bur. 12759 Rosenbluth, March, 1909, with male flowers, 
in forests, altitude about 20 meters. Mindanao, District of Davao, Williams 
288i, June 6, 1905, with nearly mature fruits: District of Cotabato, Lebak, 
For. Bur. 11815 (type), 11767 Whitford, March, 1912, both with male 
flowers, in river bottoms at low altitudes. 
This proposed new genus is manifestly closely allied to the monotypic 
Javan Cheilosa Blume, and belongs in the Euphorbiaceae-Gelonieae. It is, 
in fact, so similar to Blume’s genus that I at first considered it to be refer- 
able to Cheilosa. Cheilosa javanica Blume is represented in the Herbarium 
of the Bureau of Science by two specimens collected in Java by Blume 
himself, and presumably cotypes; both of these have female flowers. 
Our Philippine material resembles these specimens in vegetative characters, 
except that Blume’s species lacks the basal leaf-glands so characteristic 
of Alcinaeanthus. In the arrangement of both the male and female 
flowers it is also similar to Cheilosa, except that the male flowers are 
solitary in each bracteole, while the entire or 2-fid rudimentary ovary is 
similar in both genera. The differences, however, are found in the leaves, 
in the male and female flowers, and in the fruits, and are, it is considered, 
of sufficient importance to warrant the separation of the Philippine form 
as a distinct genus. As noted above, in Alcinaeanthus the leaves are 
2-glandular at the base, although in other characters very similar to those 
of Cheilosa. The flowers of both sexes are 4-merous, not 5-merous, while 
the male flowers are solitary in the axils of the bracteoles, and the sepals 
are very strongly imbricate. In the female flowers the ovary is 2-celled, 
not 3-celled as in Cheilosa, and the styles are two, very short, each with 
2, equal, short, thick lobes. The fruits are not at all sulcate, and are not 
composed of cocci, but split into four equal valves; they are also 1-celled 
and 1-seeded, not composed of three 1-seeded cocci as in Cheilosa. 
The genus is dedicated to Father Francisco Ignacio Alcina of the Jesuit 
Order, in whose honor Cavanilles has already proposed the genus Alcina' 
(=iAlcinia HBK.), which is a synonym of the earlier Melampodium of 
Linnaeus. 
Father Alcina was born in Gandia, Spain, in the year 1610, entered 
the Jesuit Order in 1624, and came to the Philippines in 1632. Here he 
was rector of various colleges, but his chief labors were of an evangelical 
nature in the Visayan Islands. He died July 30, 1674. He is the author 
of an interesting and still unpublished work on the natural history of the 
Philippines, a copy of the first part of which is preserved in the Library 
of the Ateneo de Manila, and which I have examined. The full title of the 
’leones 1 (1791) 10, t. 15. 
