Ecological Notes on Turnera ulmifolia, Z., 
var. elegans. Urban. 
R. H. LOCK. 
(Frank Smart Student of Oonville and Cairn College , Cambridge .) 
Introductory — Descriptive — Heterostylism — Self -sterility . 
Insect Visitors—Seed Distribution by Ants. 
T URNERA ulmifolia, L., is a comprehensive species, 
including a large number of so-called varieties. In 
Ceylon two such forms exist—the varieties T. angustifolia 
and T. elegans. The latter is perhaps better known as a 
separate species under the name T. trionifiora, Sims. With 
the exception of these two forms, which occur scattered m 
several places on the coasts of the Indo-Malayan region, the 
family Turneraceae is confined to America and Africa. 
Urban regards the presence of these two varieties in Asia as 
being accounted for by their escape from gardens ; and there 
. can be little doubt that this is the true explanation in the 
case of Ceylon. 
The species has existed in Ceylon for a long time in a wild 
condition. Trimen* describes it as a common weed’of road¬ 
sides and waste ground about Colombo and other places in 
the low-country, but makes no mention of the date of its 
introduction. The form commonly occurring wild is T. 
angustifolia, as I learn from Mr. Willis. T. trionifiora, Sims 
(elegans, Urban), is mentioned in Trimen’s List of Plants 
growing in the Royal Botanic Gardens as having been 
introduced before 1845 ; it grows luxuriantly at Peradeniya. 
