SABIIA - Sistema Aberto e Integrado de Informação em Agricultura (Sabiia)

Among the Acanthaceae grown in the glasshouses of the University Botanic Garden, Utrecht, a plant labelled Aphelandra velutina drew my attention, first, because it obviously belonged to an entirely different genus, and secondly, because a description under this name could nowhere be found. The coincidence of these two grounds for bewilderment might be explained by assuming that Aphelandra was merely a perversion, probably caused by the inadvertency of a transcriber, of the true generic name. This sounded plausible enough, but the name itself could not be found, for all attempts to refer the plant to one of the existing genera failed. It looked as if the plant might have been described somewhere, but for the time being there was no indication at all as to...

The concepts on which a morphology of the vascular plants should be based

Ano: 1942

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/535020

It can hardly be denied that the expression “General Plant Morphology”, which is so often met with in botanical textbooks, has little or no meaning. A general morphology of the Plant Kingdom would have to occupy itself with those morphological features that are common to all groups of plants, which means that it would have to confine itself to the common features of the cell structure and eventually to such peculiarities as are independent of the uni- or pluricellular structure of the plant body, e.g. its enclosure within a rigid envelop. However, when we realize that there is in this respect no fundamental difference between the common features of plants and animals or, at least, of some groups of animals it will be clear that the use of the expression...

The correct binomial for Rumph’s “Folium tinctorum”

Ano: 1956

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/534927

In my “Notes on the Acanthaceae of Java” (in Verh. Kon. Ned. Akad. v. Wetensch., Afd. Natuurk. 2nd Sect. 45, 2: 29,1948) I discussed the three epithets that had been applied to Rumph’s “Folium tinctorum” after the latter had been transferred to the genus Peristrophe, which, as is well known, was based on this species. Nees, the author of the genus, has used the name P. tinctoria, because he regarded Justicia tinctoria Roxb. as the oldest binomial that had been applied to it. This was contested both by Merrill and by Hochreutiner. Merrill was of opinion that Justicia bivalvis L (1759) was its oldest name, but as I pointed out l.c. this binomial must be regarded as a “nomen confusum”; the description indicates a Dicliptera species, whereas the plate in the...

The genus Mussaendopsis Bail. (Rub.)

Ano: 1956

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/535105

The genus Mussaendopsis was created by Baillon in 1879 for a tree found by Beccari in Sarawak, Borneo. As it appeared afterwards, the same species occurs also in the Malay Peninsula, on the islands between the latter and Borneo, and in Sumatra. On specimens collected in the Malay Peninsula, in 1884 the genus Creaghia Scort. was founded. The descriptions of the two genera are very similar, and as Mussaendopsis Baill. is not mentioned by Scortechini, we may safely assume that Baillon’s publication was unknown to him. The identity of the two genera was disclosed by K. Schumann in his monograph of the family in Engler & Prantl. Subsequently the plant was dealt with by Stapf, King and Gamble, Ridley and Lemée. None of the descriptions, however, is entirely...

The genus Praravinia Korth. (Rubiaceae) in Borneo and Celebes

Ano: 1939

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/535003

The genus Praravinia was created by KORTHALS (in TEMMINCK, Verhand. Nat. Gesch. Ned. Overz. Bezitt., Bot., p. 189, tab. 41, 1839-1842) for a plant which he had collected in the south-eastern part of Borneo. He described it as similar in habit and doubtless nearly related to Urophyllum WALL. His diagnosis of the genus, however, does not substantiate this point of view, for it contains two statements which seem to exclude the possibility of a near affinity: the aestivation of the corolla lobes is described as imbricate, whereas in Urophyllum and its allies it is always valvate, and the number of corolla lobes is said to be half as large as that of the stamens, a condition unknown not only in Urophyllum but in the whole family. As in the description of the...

The identity of Micranthu serpyllifolius Roth

Ano: 1940

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/535223

Recently I got the opportunity of examining a specimen from the “Rijksherbarium”, Leiden, which was provided with a label on which ROTH had written in the middle the name of the plant, viz. “ Micranthus serpyllifol-Roth ” and in the lower right corner the name of the collector, viz. “Heyne”; in the lower left comer another hand had added “Ind. or. Hb. Roth”. As the specimen proved to answer the description of Micranthus serpyllifolius given on p. 282 of ROTH’s “Novae Plantarum Species, Halberstadt 1821,” there can be little doubt that it is either the type of this species or else a duplicate of the latter. This is the more important as none of the authors who in the past ventured an opinion with regard to the taxonomic position of ROTH’s species,...

The identity of Simira tinctoria aubl

Ano: 1955

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/534890

AUBLET described and figured in his “Histoire des Plantes de la Guiane Francoise” (Vol. I p. 170-172 and Vol. III t. 65, 1775) under the name Simira tinctoria a tree belonging to the family Rubiaceae which until very recently was represented in the herbaria solely by specimens that he himself had collected. One of these specimens is preserved in the herbarium of the British Museum (Natural History) and another one in the “Herbier Denaiffe” (cf. LANJOUW, J. and H. UITTIEN in Rec. d. trav. bot. Néerl. 37, 357, 1940), which was recently acquired by the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris. AUBLET’s new genera were viewed in his own time and even long afterwards with considerable distrust, and when we see that their separation from older and already well-known...

The position of the genus Thomandersia Bail

Ano: 1955

URL: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/535200

Among the most aberrant types of pollen grains found in plants which have been referred to the family Acanthaceae, are those of the genera Meyenia N. ab E. and Thomandersia Baill. Although the pollen grains were described by LINDAU under different names, those of the first genus as cogwheel-shaped and those of the latter as lenticular, they are really very similar: in both genera they are depressed globose, provided with five or more meridional grooves extending from the equator to about halfway the poles, and without clearly circumscribed germ pores. The difference between the two kinds of grains lies in the presence or absence of ribs: in Meyenia the grooves are borne on the top of ribs separated from each other by shallow depressions, whereas in...