212 
WILLTS : PODOSTEMACEÆ 
We now have L. foil osa, another of Wight’s species, to con- 
sider. Specimens from his herbarium, named in his own 
handwriting, are in the Kew herbarium; the packet is 
marked on the outside “ Lawia No. 1, Law, Bombay,” in 
Law’s handwriting. The character on which Wight bases 
the species is the supposed absence of any union of the 
leaves at the base of the pedicel of the flower ; in the other 
species the leaves are always united more or less into a 
cupular structure, or rather, the axis bearing the leaves is 
cupular. Examining Wight’s material, I found the foliose 
character in a few of the flowers, but others had a distinct 
cupule, and in all other respects the material exactly 
resembled his L. pedunculosa, which is also Law’s “ Lawia 
No. 1 .” Wight, therefore, appears to have divided up Law’s 
material into these two species on the chance observation of 
one or two flower axes (probably supposing each axis to 
represent a whole plant), and the fact that some axes were 
foliose, others not, showed the species to be untenable on his 
material. Warming, however, describes in detail a specimen 
collected at Khandalla by Goebel, which has the foliose 
character very well marked, at any rate in the bud stage, 
which is all that Warming {1. c. IV., 159) figures. By the 
kindness of Prof. Goebel, I have had the opportunity of 
examining his material, and find that it is usually cupular, 
but that in the bud stage it is occasionally foliose, and I have 
further verified this observation upon living material 
collected by myself at Khandalla and elsewhere in the Ghats, 
east of Bombay. Wight’s L. foliosa, therefore, falls to the 
ground as an independent species, becoming a syjmnym of 
his pedunculosa, ?’.e., of Tulasne’s longipes. 
We are thus reduced to Tulasne’s three species, which, so 
far as herbarium material shows, are well separated, mainly 
by length of leaves and fruiting pedicels. I have, however, 
found by examination of large quantities of material that 
these characters are too variable to be relied upon, even in 
living material. Long and short leaves and pedicels may 
