The Leaf Buds of Archytaea alternifolia. 
BY 
R. J. TABOR, B.Sc., F.L.S. 
Demonstrator in Botany , Royal College of Science, London . 
With Plate LXXIX. 
RCHYTAEA is a small genus of the Ternstroemiaceae comprising 
jljl only four species, of which two are American and two Malayan. 
The material under investigation belongs to one of the Malayan species, 
and was collected in the neighbourhood of Singapore. 
A. alternifolia , Szyszyl., is a glabrous evergreen shrub with alternate, 
oblanceolate, leathery, sessile leaves. The buds are not invested by scale 
leaves, stipules, or other protective structures. The young leaves are 
convoluted in the bud, the outer ones unrolling gradually from above 
downwards; the base of each leaf closely invests the stem for some little 
distance above its node. 
The bud has in consequence the form of a trumpet or a funnel 
(PI. LXXIX, Fig. i), the upper portions of the younger leaves within being 
freely exposed. All danger of desiccation is, however, apparently obviated 
by the fact that the buds are borne in an upright position and are filled 
with a watery fluid. 1 
As a consequence the development of the young leaves takes place 
under water, which must either be collected from the atmosphere in the form 
of rain or dew, or must be secreted within the bud. 
In the well-known case of Spathodea , described by Treub (10), the 
water which fills the unopened calyx of the flower bud is secreted by glands 
borne on the inner surface of the sepals. Kraus (4) has described flower 
buds filled with water in Parmentiera , and Raciborski (6) has come to the 
conclusion that very probably a number of genera belonging to the 
Bignoniaceae and Melastomaceae have a similar protective device. So far 
as I am aware no leaf buds have been previously described in which the 
young leaves are protected by immersion in water. 
The leaf. The mature leaf is oblanceolate in form, the largest leaf in 
the material measuring 13 cm. in length and cm. at its maximum breadth. 
The surface is glabrous and the margins slightly revolute. A main vein 
1 For this information I am indebted to Prof. Groom, who collected the material. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXV. No. C. October, 19x1.] 
