SELANGOR: Ridley 7412. MALACCA: Maingay (K.D.) 1081.-DISTRIB. Andaman Islands, Java. Some of the specimens examined differ in the size of the flowers, in the inflorescence, and in the greater or less bifurcation of the corolla-lobes, but we have not succeeded in separating any of them as species or even varieties, and prefer to consider them all as forms of one. 2. MICRECHITES ELLIPTICA, Hook. f. Fl. Br. Ind. III. 671 (1882). Rhyncospermum 4, Herb. Ind. Or. Hook. f. & Th. India in Sikkim Himalaya at 4000 to 6000 ft., and Khasia Hills at 3000 to 4000 ft. VAR. Scortechinii, King & Gamble. A climbing shrub. Leaves chartaceous; lanceolate, obtusely long-acuminate at apex, cuneate at base; glabrous on both surfaces; 3 to 3.5 in. long, 1 to 1.5 in. broad; main nerves 10 to 12, very slender, not conspicuous; secondary nerves many; reticulations oblique; petiole 25 in. long. Cymes terminal or axillary, very few-flowered, scarcely reaching 1 to 1.5 in. long, minutely puberulous; pedicels slender, 2 in. long; bracteoles ovate, persistent; buds ovoid, obtuse. Calyx-lobes ovate, ciliate, rounded, 075 in. long. Corolla-tube cylindric, 1 in. long, constricted slightly at the mouth; lobes linear-oblong, 15 in. long, twisted, glabrous, much turned to the left. Anthers sagittate, acuminate; filaments very short. Ovary densely villous. Fruit not known. PERAK Scortechini. This may prove, when better specimens are available, to be incapable of separation from the Indian type. Family LXXVI. ASCLEPIADACEÆ. Herbs or shrubs, erect or more usually twining, often with a tuberous rootstock or fleshy roots; juice milky or watery; stems simple or branched, usually woody, sometimes succulent. Leaves opposite or whorled, sometimes wanting, very rarely alternate; thin or fleshy, quite entire, sometimes with an interpetiolar stipulary line or teeth. Flowers hermaphrodite, very variable in size and form but always regular; solitary or few or many together, in umbels, umbel-like cymes, fascicles or racemes, axillary, lateral between the bases of the leaves or terminal. Calyx inferior, of 5 sepals or 5-lobed; lobes imbricate, usually with minute glandular scales at the base within. Corolla hypogynous, gamopetalous, regular, 5-lobed, various in shape; tube usually short (long in Ceropegia), sometimes furnished within or at its mouth with variously shaped processes forming a corolline corona; lobes imbricate, contorted or valvate in æstivation, often recurved, sometimes more or less erect and connate at their tips. Stamens 5, inserted at or near the base of the corolla and alternate with its lobes, rarely higher up; filaments some times free, more usually connate in a tube around the ovary, forming with the anthers and their terminal appendages a staminal column, with the apex often united to the dilated part of the style, usually with more or less fleshy processes on the back forming a staminal corona; anthers free or united to the dilated part of the style, 2-celled; the cells dehiscing by apical longitudinal or transverse slits; the margins of the anthers or their basal prolongations below the cells more or less horny and wing-like (the anther-wings), usually projecting outwards; the adjacent wings of each pair of anthers nearly meeting and forming between them very narrow fissures leading to the stigmatic cavities; connectives of the anthers often produced into membranous rarely fleshy or inflated terminal appendages which are sometimes connate; pollen-contents of each anther-cell granular or united into one or two waxy masses (pollen-masses) formed of an indefinite number of pollengrains and attached in pairs or in fours, sometimes directly but more usually by means of arm-like caudicles to each of the 5 small, usually horny, turgid or bilobed pollen-carriers, which rest one on each of the 5 angles of the dilated part of the style, the whole forming the pollinia, the masses attached to each pollen-carrier always being derived from the cells of two different but adjacent anthers; when granular, each granule is formed of about 4 pollen-grains united together, and, on the dehiscence of the anthers, the whole is loosely contained in the horny spoon, trumpet-, or trowel-like or bifid appendicle tapering downwards into a short or long caudicle attached to a soft (adhesive?) pollen-carrier gland. Ovary superior, of 2 one-celled, many-ovuled, carpels, free below; the styles united above and dilated into a pentagonal disk (style-apex) which is flat or depressed in the centre, with or without a conical or otherwise shaped tip, and bears on its angles the pollen-carriers and immediately beneath them, behind the fissures between the anther-wings, the 5 stigmatic cavities; ovules usually numerous, rarely few or solitary, anatropous, pendulous, imbricate in several series on the projecting placenta. Fruit of 2 (or 1 by suppression) divaricate or parallel follicular mericarps, dehiscing by the ventral suture and usually liberating the placenta pericarp usually smooth, sometimes echinate or winged. Seeds usually flat, sometimes ovoid or cylindric, usually with a broad or narrow margin, generally crowned with a coma of long silky hairs, sometimes fringed, sometimes without any tuft; testa thin or thick; albumen usually thin, sometimes rather thick, sometimes none; embryo large, nearly or quite filling the seed; cotyledons flat; radicle usually cylindric, superior. — DISTRIB. A large Family of more than 1800 species, widely distributed over tropical and subtropical, with a few in temperate, regions. As in the Family APOCYNACEE, in which we were much assisted by Dr. O. Stapf's account of it in the Flora of Tropical Africa,' Vol. IV. Sect. 1, so in ASCLEPIADACEÆ we have been indebted to that by Mr. N. E. Brown in the same work, which has helped us properly to understand the morphology of a very difficult but most interesting Family of plants. We wish also to mention that much assistance was derived from the account of the Family and its Western India genera given by Dr. T. Cooke, C.I.E., in Vol. II. of his 'Flora of the Presidency of Bombay.' ANALYSIS OF THE TRIBES. Pollen granular, loosely contained in the more or less spathulate or bifid appendicles, not attached to the latter I. PERIPLOCEÆ. Pollen united into very minute waxy masses, 4 or 2 of which are sessile upon a very minute quadrate pale-coloured pollen-carrier II. SECAMONEÆ. Pollen united in waxy opaque masses without pellucid margin, usually of fair size and attached in pairs by caudicles to the dark-coloured pollen-carriers : Pollen-masses pendulous .. Pollen-masses erect or horizontal, very rarely pendulous III. CYNANCHEÆ. IV. MARSDENIEÆ. Pollen united in waxy masses pellucid on one margin or at the apex, and attached in pairs by caudicles to the pollen-carriers V. CeropegieÆ. Tribe I. PERIPLOCEÆ. Filaments of the stamens free; anthers acute or with the connectives produced in terminal appendages connivent over the style-apex and frequently connate. Pollen-contents of each anther-cell of numerous loose granules, each granule formed of 3 to 4 pollen-grains united in lines or tetrads. Appendicles spathulate, trumpet-shaped or trowelshaped, sometimes bipartite, horny, attached by short or long caudicles to an adhesive pollen-carrier gland at the base, which is itself attached to the angles of the style-apex, holding the pollen-granules loosely but not attached to them. Corona-processes none:— Anthers with long appendages; climbers: Anther appendages erect, thick, curving inwards at tip Anthers with short appendages curving over the style-apex; shrubs Corona-processes 5:— Corona-processes short, thick Corona-processes filiform, behind the stamens : Stamens without alternating glands between the filaments; Follicles short, broad, ribbed; corolla large .. 1. PHYLLANTHERA. 2. PENTANURA. 3. GONGYLOSPERMA. 4. HEMIDESMUS. 5. FINLAYSONIA. 6. GYMNANTHERA. 7. ATHERANDRA. Corolla-lobes short, ovate; anther appendages short, thick 8. STREPTOCAULON. 1. PHYLLANTHERA, Blume. Glabrous climbing shrubs. Leaves opposite, with nerves at right angles to the midrib, pale beneath. Flowers long-pedicelled, subracemose, reddish, in lax pedunculate cymes from one axil of a pair of leaves. Calyx short, 5-fid; lobes ovate; scales 5, alternate with the lobes within, membranous. Corolla campanulate-rotate, fleshy, deeply 5-fid, papillose within; lobes suboblique, concave, overlapping to the right. Corona none. Stamens affixed near the base of the corolla; filaments free; anthers agglutinated with the style-apex, not bearded; appendages erect, thick, naked, curving inwards at the tip. Pollen granular, composed of 3 to 4 granules cross-wise adherent; pollencarriers globose, bearing short slender caudicles ending in obliquely funnel-shaped appendicles which carry the pollen-masses. Style-apex capitate, obscurely 5-angled. Fruit of 2 slender divaricate follicular mericarps. Seeds oblong; testa thin, with few silky hairs ending in a tufted long silky coma; albumen thin; cotyledons oblong; radicle cylindric, nearly as long as the cotyledons.-DISTRIB. Species 2, one of the Malay Peninsula, the other of Java. PHYLLANTHERA PERAKENSIS, King & Gamble, n. sp. A glabrous slender climbing shrub, with thin slender terete branchlets. Leaves somewhat fleshy, membranous when dry; oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acuminate at apex, rounded at base; glabrous on both surfaces, the lower pale, almost glaucous; margins recurved; 2.5 to 4 in. long, 75 to 1.25 in. broad; midrib prominent, impressed above, raised beneath; main nerves 8 to 10 pairs at right angles to the midrib, obscure, slender, straight to join an intramarginal looped nerve at the sinus of the loops; secondary nerves very few, between and parallel to the main nerves, very obscure; reticulations not visible; petiole slender, 25 to 5 in. long, slightly thickened below. Cymes few-flowered; peduncles slender, up to about 25 in. long; branches usually 2, reaching 5 in. in length, subracemose, with pairs of persistent small ovate acute scarious bracts; pedicels very slender, about 25 in. long; buds globose; flowers reddishbrown or mottled red and yellow. Calyx-lobes ovate, hyaline, ·05 in. long; scales 1 to 2 in. long, membranous. Corolla-lobes orbicular, imbricate, 2 to 3 in. long, minutely papillose within; tube very short. Anthers with appendages 05 to 075 in. long. Follicles slender, 6 to 7 in. long, 25 in. broad, the tip hooked inwards, divaricate in one straight line; pericarp smooth, thin, dark brown, striate. Seeds many, oblong, ridged on the ventral surface, 3 in. long, 06 in. broad, with a few sparse white hairs and a deciduous silky white spreading coma 15 to 2 in. long; testa thin, dark brown; albumen very thin; cotyledons oblong, rather fleshy, 15 in. long, 05 in. broad; radicle cylindric, 1 in. long. PERAK: at Kota, Wray 2407, 3005; Scortechini; at Larút, King's Collector 2059, 2181, 7314. This species comes very near to the Javanese P. bifida, Blume, but the latter has narrower and longer leaves, with very many (20 to 25) pairs of main nerves and many secondary ones with the intramarginal nerve much nearer the margin. The peduncles and branches of the cyme and the pedicels are stouter and longer and the corolla more fleshy. The anthers are similar, but the pollen-carrier appendicles are more obliquely funnel-shaped (see t. xxii. in Bl. Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. I.). The only specimen in the Kew Herbarium is "Coll. T. Lobb, India 1868," and may be possibly from the Peninsula. In the Calcutta Herbarium are specimens from Sumatra (H. O. Forbes 2436). 2. PENTANURA, Blume. Glabrous climbing shrubs. Leaves opposite, with nerves at right angles to the midrib or nearly so. Flowers 1 to 3, on bracteate pedunculate racemose cymes in the axils of or opposite to one leaf of the pair. Calyx small, 5-fid, with 5 membranous scales alternate with the lobes within. Corolla campanulate-rotate, fleshy, deeply 5-fid, papillose within; lobes oblong, concave, overlapping to the right. Corona none. Stamens affixed near the base of the corolla, the bases distant, geniculate; filaments free; anthers agglutinated with the style-apex, oblong, not bearded; appendages lanceolate, bearded, caudiform, erect at tip. Pollen granular, composed of 3 to 4 granules cross-wise adherent pollen-carriers discoid, bearing slender caudicles and spathulate often truncate appendicles which carry the pollen-masses. Style-apex capitate, sharply 5-angled. Fruit of 2 slender divaricate follicular mericarps. Seeds oblong, with few silky hairs ending in a tufted long silky coma; testa thin; albumen thin; cotyledons oblong; radicle cylindric.-DISTRIB. Species 2, one of the Khasia Hills and Yunan, the other of the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago. This genus comes very near to Phyllanthera, with which we are inclined to think it might be incorporated. It differs in the markedly pentagonal style-apex, the bearded anther appendages, and the spathulate not funnel-shaped appendicles of the pollen-carriers. P. khasiana, Kurz, Fl. Br. Ind. IV. 4, hardly seems to us to belong to this genus. PENTANURA SUMATRANA, Blume Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Bat. I. 125, t. xxi. (1849). A glabrous slender climbing shrub, with thin angled or striate branchlets, bearing occasional round lenticels. Leaves chartaceous; elliptic, rather abruptly acuminate at apex, cuneate at base; glabrous on both surfaces, the lower pale, almost glaucous; the margins. strongly recurved; 3 to 4 in. long, 1-25 to 1.75 in. broad; midrib slender, slightly impressed above, raised beneath; main nerves 7 to 8 pairs, slightly raised beneath, at or a little less than right angles with |