338 
RECORDS OF THE BOTANICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
styles 5, distinct from the base, erecto-patent, with ascending hairs ; 
stigmas 5, spreading, umbilieate. 
About 1824 A. De Candolle in the first volume of the Prodromus 
established from material collected in the islands of Bom bor and 
Mauritius the species which forms the subject of this note. Idis 
description was, like those of most of his species published at the time, 
so fragmentary as to be almost worthless in a genus the species of which 
differ from one another in minor characters only. 
Before the first volume of the Prodromus appeared A. De Saint Hilaire 
had been exploring Brazil and from the region of Sebastianopolim had 
collected an Oivalis to which he gave in his a Flora Brazilice Meridi- 
nalis ” specific rank under the name of 0. u'rbica. The species was 
published in 1824 and though the author seems to have known that 
the same plant had already been found in Mauritius he must have been 
ignorant of its previous description by De Candolle. St. Hilaire's 
diagnosis, however, is much more complete than De Candolle's and he is 
aware that the plant was likely to be confused with 0. violacea Linn. 
About the same time Zuccarini in the Denk. Akad. Muench. IX, 114 
gives the same plant specific rank as 0. Martiana and in the Nachtrag to 
his Monograph (1831) as regards locality remarks " Crescit locis apricis, 
ad meros, margines viarum per totam Brasiliam australiorem (de 
Martius, St. Hilaire) nec non in insula Franeiae (St. HiL) Floret 
Octobri, Novembri." At a later date (1877) Progel in the Flora 
Braziliensis refers to it under the same name, giving as its localities Rio 
de Janeiro, Jamaica and Ascension. While first reported therefore from 
Mauritius and Bourbon the plant is no doubt native of the South 
American Continent. Indeed Baker (Flora of Mauritius and Seychelles) 
refuses to recognise it as indigenous to the island group from which it 
was introduced to science and his views have since received support in 
the notable absence of the species in the tropical African lists not to 
mention the much richer Oxalidaceous Cape Flora. We are unable to 
get at any data relative to the exact collection on which De Candolle 
based his meagre description but it is not unlikely that Sieber originally 
gathered the plant and the number of hon-indigenous species found in 
that traveller's collections goes to show that he drew his plants to no 
small extent from gardens and cultivated ground. There is no doubt, 
however, that the plant has now thoroughly established itself in the 
Mauritius group. 
An analysis of the distribution of this Oxalis proves that the plant 
is far from geographically stable. With the exception of 0. corniculata 
and possibly 0. Pes-cayrce it is now more widely distributed than all the 
other members of the genus. 
