xv, 2 Merrill: Melodorum of Loureiro 127 
/ 
case of a generic name proposed by Loureiro currently applied 
to a group of species quite different from Loureiro’s original 
conception of the genus. 
From an examination of the sketch of Loureiro’s type kindly 
prepared by Mr. J. G. Baker I am confident that Melodorum 
fruticosum Lour, is the species currently known as Polyalthia 
aberrans Maingay and which has been variously described by 
several authors as Polyalthia, affinis Teysm. & Binn., P. siamensis 
Boerl., and Unona mesneyi Pierre, and which was eventually 
transferred to Popowia by Pierre as Popowia aberrans Pierre. 
From this I cannot distinguish Popowia diospyrifolia Pierre by 
any satisfactory characters. Pierre 5 6 has given a detailed account 
of the characters of this species, indicating that it approaches 
Popowia in certain respects, but concluding that it cannot be 
referred to Endlicher’s genus. He found that it is, in most re- 
spects, a Polyalthia but proposed for it the group name Mesneya, 
as a subgenus of Unona. Safford 8 has clearly shown that the 
so-called Old World species of Unona have nothing to do with 
Unona as originally described by the younger Linnaeus, this being 
an American genus, the proper generic name for the Old World 
species being Desmos Lour. King 7 notes that Polyalthia aber- 
rans Maing., as interpreted by him, “save, and except in the 
much smaller size of the flowers,” much resembles the plant 
figured and described by Pierre under the name of Unona 
mesneyi, and to which Pierre reduced Polyalthia aberrans. An 
examination of Cochinchina material now available to me for 
study and comparison shows that the size of the flowers in 
Pierre’s drawing is greatly exaggerated, and that they are drawn 
all out of proportion to the leaves. 
In interpreting the true status of Melodorum as described 
by Loureiro, we find that the type of the genus is a species 
aberrant in all of the genera in which it has been placed. It 
is to be noted that Pierre proposed for it the group name Mes- 
neya (as a subgenus), and that Scheffer, quoted by Boerlage,® 
proposed for the same form the generic term Sphaerocoryne. 
For the present it seems best to retain Melodorum as a genus 
closely allied to Popowia, for which the names Mesneya Pierre 
and Sphaerocoryne Scheffer are exact synonyms. Polyalthia 
5 Fl. Forest. Cochinch. 1 (1880) t. 17. 
6 Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 39 (1912) 501-508. 
7 Ann. Bot. Gard. Calcutta 4 (1893) 78. 
8 Boerl. in Ic. Bogor. 1 (1899) 198, in nota sub Polyalthia siamensis 
Boerl. 
