PHILIPPINE URTICACEAE, II. 
313 
stages, but also to emphasize the rather close tendency of some forms to bridge 
the gap between Cypholophus and Boehmeria on one hand and Pipturus and 
Pouzolzia on the other, with respect to this very character. 20 
Since its segregation by Weddell, no one has proposed to reduce Pipturus to 
any other genus, and certainly I have no such intention. Nor, so far as I can 
ascertain, has any recent writer wrongly referred to it any species belonging 
elsewhere, although this discussion has arisen through my own reference to 
Pouzolzia of a species which I now believe to be a Pipturus. But upon what 
character are these genera to be held distinct? Apparently, none can be drawn 
from the pistillate perianth, and even without going outside of Pouzolzia, there 
are species where that has been alleged to be adnate to the ovary, even as is 
the ease with Pipturus, while I have failed to find it so in either genus. 21 There 
remains the fleshy receptacle, so obvious to every observer in the field, so im- 
perfectly shown in the herbarium, although the early stages even there have 
evidently been sufficiently indicative. This I believe to be the correct solution. 
There has been time to compare notes with Mr. J. J. Smith, who has been 
able to make a further examination of Pipturus repandus. He finds that its 
fruiting perianth as well as its flowering one is thick and very succulent and 
replete with a viscid sap. The fruiting perianth is hardly longer than the 
flowering one, but the color, at first grass-green, changes into a dirty green. His 
results have lect to yet another examination of P. arborescens, with full confirma- 
tion of the above statements regarding it. The utmost concession that can be 
made is that the perianth is kept moist by the very succulent receptacle. 
The net result of the two series of observations would seem to be that the 
nature# of the perianth is not the same in all species of the genus, but that they 
agree in the nature of the receptacle. Staminate receptacles are less perfectly 
developed than the pistillate. 
The change in the generic position of Pipturus dentatus unexpectedly reveals 
the fact that it is with difficulty delimited verbally from P. arborescens, its 
nearest ally, as both belong in the group with axillary inflorescence, and have 
free stipules ; and P. mindanaensis, the only other species of the genus of which 
both these statements are true, differs from P. dentatus even more than from 
P. arborescens. But the two last differ widely in appearance and are undoubtedly 
distinct specifically. The petioles of P. dentatus are somewhat shorter and stouter, 
and they like the branchlets are clothed with denser, longer, and less appressed 
pubescence than those of P. arborescens; the leaf -teeth of P. dentatus are at 
once very evident and rounded, in P. arborescens they are rarely rounded except 
when they are very shallow, and their margin on the side toward the apex of 
the leaf is ordinarily much shorter than toward the base, in P. dentatus these 
margins are more nearly equal. The branchlets of P. dentatus are more zigzag 
than those of P. arborescens, and like the upper surface of the leaves dry to a 
darker color; a conspicuous feature of nearly every shoot of the former is the 
presence of short axillary branchlets bearing reduced and shorter- petioled leaves, 
these are much less frequently found on P. arborescens, but do occur. The 
resemblance is still greater to P. ruber Heller, of Hawaii, Heller 2852, but the 
stipules of that species are adnate, its petioles are stouter, the lamina larger, 
less pubescent, usually 5 -nerved at the base. 
20 See This Journal 6 (1911) Bot. 2. 
21 See This Journal 6 ( 1911) Bot. 8, under P. rubricaulis. 
