List of Officers and Members of Council

OF THE

ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL

For the year 1908.

President:

The Hon'ble Mr. Justice Asutosh Mukhopadhyaya, M.A., D.L., D.Sc., F.R.S.E.

Vice-Presidents:

T. H. Holland, Esq., D.Sc., F.G.S., F.R.S.

G. Thibaut, Esq., C.I.E., Ph.D., D.Sc.
Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri, M.A.

Secretary and Treasurer:

General Secretary:-Lieut. Colonel D. C. Phillott.
Treasurer:-J. A. Chapman, Esq.

Additional Secretaries:

Philological Secretary:-Lieut. Colonel D. C. Phillott. Natural History Secretary:-I. H. Burkill, Esq., M.A. Anthropological Secretary:-N. Annandale, Esq., D.Sc., C.M.Z.S.

Joint Philological Secretary:-Mahamahopadhyaya Satis Chandra Vidyabhuṣaṇa, M.A.

Medical Secretary:-Major L. Rogers, M.D., B.Sc., I.M.S. Numismatic Secretary:-H. N. Wright, Esq., 1.C.S.

Other Members of Council:

T. H. D. La Touche, Esq., B.A., F.G.S.

Harinath De, Esq., M.A.

J. A. Cunningham, Esq., B.A.

Lieut.-Colonel W. J. Buchanan, M.D., I.M.S.

H. G. Graves, Esq.

Lieut. Colonel G. F. A. Harris, M.D., F.R.C.P., I.M.S.

Babu Monmohan Chakravarti, M.A., B.L.

Abdulla al-Mamun Suhrawardy, Esq., M.A., LL.D.

VOL. LXXIV., PART II.-Extra Number, 1907.

Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula.-By SIR GEORGE KING, K.C.I.E., LL.D., F.R.S., late Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and J. SYKES GAMBLE, C.I.E., F.R.S., late of the Indian Forest Department.

No. 20.

The present Part contains the descriptions of three Families, No. 89 Acanthacea, which was only finished by the late Mr. C. B. Clarke, F.R.S., just before his lamented death in August, 1906, and Nos. 91 Labiata and 92 Plantaginaceae, which have been done by Lt.-Col. Prain, C.I.E., F.R.S., Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew.

The 3 Families comprise 54 genera and 166 species. In the Acanthaceae there are 35 genera and 134 species, of which 5 genera and 68 species are new. In the Labiate the genera are 18 and the species 31, one genus being newly described. But it is worthy of note that of the 31 species only 16 are really native in the Malay Peninsula, the rest being introduced plants. One species only is endemic, Plectranthus Kunstleri, Prain. In Plantaginaceae there is merely one genus. containing one species, an introduced weed.

It may here be usefully recorded that, in addition to his work on the Malay Peninsula Acanthacea herein given, the late Mr. Clarke also prepared an account of the species of the Malay Archipelago, which will shortly be published in the Journal of the Linnean Society.'

་

Part No. 21, which will contain two Families, No. 86 Gesneracea and No. 90 Verbenacea, and thus complete the Gamopetala, may be expected to issue about the New Year.

Family LXXXIX.-ACANTHACEÆ.

[By C. B. CLARKE.]

Herbs or shrubs, or twining plants (Thunbergia). Leaves opposite, often unequal, in Polytrema sometimes pseudalternate; stipules 0. Inflorescence various; spikes strobilate or heads or cymose or flowers solitary; bracts and prophylla large, small or 0. Flowers 2-sexual, irregular. Calyx inferior; segments 5 or 4, nearly free or more or less united. Corolla gamopetalous; tube campanulate or linear; limb 2-lipped or 5-lobed, more or less 1-sided. Stamens on the corolla 4 didynamous, or 2 (with or without rudiments); anther-cells 2 or 1; pollen ellipsoid (then usually ribbed or banded longitudinally) or globose (then often honeycombed or echinulate). Ovary superior, 2-celled; ovules 2 to 1, or several, superimposed in vertical rows (or 2 collateral in Thunbergia); style long, simple, minutely 2-fid. Capsule loculicidal, often elastically dehiscent; seeds usually nearly as many as the ovules, held up on rigid curved retinacula (outgrowths of the funicle); albumen 0.-DISTRIB. Species 2000, throughout the warmer parts of the world.

This Family is specially characterized by the retinacula and the seeds placed in a vertical line; this character fails in the first two Subfamilies. The plants of Subfamily II. NELSONIOIDEÆ are frequently mistaken for those of SCROPHULARIACEE, from which they differ by the seeds being superimposed vertically.

CONSPECTUS OF THE SUBFAMILIES, TRIBES, And Genera.

Seeds 4 to 2 in the capsule

1. THUNBERGIA.

Subfamily I. THUNBERGIOIDEÆ.
without retinacula. Twiners
Subfamily II. NELSONIOIDEÆ. Seeds 8 to 16, vertically super-
imposed in 2 rows in the capsule on small soft papillæ (not
on hard curved retinacula). Herbs small or of very moderate
size:-

Subfamily III. RUELLIOIDEÆ. Retinacula present. Corolla-lobes contorted in the bud :

Tribe 1. RUELLIINE. Capsule with more than 4 seeds, which are hygroscopically shaggy on the margin :

Pollen honeycombed. Flowers axillary. Capsule clavate
Pollen echinate. Capsule seed-bearing from the base
Pollen ellipsoid, with many longitudinal ribs. Capsule
hardly stalked :-

4. CARDANTHera.

7. RUELLIA.
8. APORUELLIA.

Subfamily IV. ACANTHOIDEE. Retinacula present. Corolla with the posticous lip cut away; anticous lip 3-lobed, the middle lobe bifid ..

Subfamily V. JUSTICIOIDEA. Retinacula present. Corolla-lobes imbricated in the bud, i. e. one lobe wholly within, one wholly without, the others :

:

Tribe 1. GYMNOSTACHYINE. Capsule with more than 4 seeds.
Bracts inconspicuous, hardly as long as the small sepals,
which rarely attain one-fifth inch in length. Stamens 2:-
Capsule cylindric at base; seeds in the clavate top
Capsule with parallel sides; seed-bearing from the base :-
Corolla-tube cylindric, scarcely inflated :-

Seeds hygroscopically hairy on the margin
Seeds glabrous, stony

Corolla-tube much inflated upwards

Tribe 2. ASYSTASIINE. Capsule with 4 seeds. Stamens 4:

13. ACANTHOPALE.

14. ACANTHUS.

16. PHLOGACANTHUS.

15. GYMNOSTACHYUM.

17. ANDROGRAPHIS.

18. CYSTACANTHUS.

Sepals united at base for at least one-third of their length 20. PHIALACANTHUS.

One anther-cell below the other

Capsule conic; the 4 seeds near the base

Tribe 3. BARLERIINE. Capsule 2- to 4-seeded. Stamens 2,

Anther-cells 2,
Corolla yellow,

19. ASYSTASIA.

21. FILETIA.
22. LEPIDAGATHIS.

23. BARLERIA.

fertile. Calyx large, 4-partite to the base.
rounded at base. Pollen globose, reticulated.
1.25 in. long
Tribe 4. ERANTHEMINE. Capsule 4- to 2-seeded. Stamens 2.
Anther-cells 2, rounded at base. Corolla-tube linear; limb
subequally 5-fid, spreading

Tribe 5. JUSTICIINE. Capsule 4- to 2-seeded. Corolla distinctly 2-lipped. Stamens 2. Calyx small, subequally deeply lobed. Seeds smooth or tuberculate, but without needle-like hygroscopic hairs :

:

Sect. 1. MONOTHECIEE. Anthers 1-celled:-
Corolla 1.25 in. long, orange-red

Sect. 2. TYPICÆ. Anthers 2-celled. The flower not ap
pearing as though enclosed between two opposite bracts.
Placentæ in fruit not rising elastically from the base of the
capsule :-

25. CLINACANTHUS.

One anther-cell somewhat below the other, its base
rounded or acute, scarcely tailed:-
:-

26. JUSTICIA.

27. ADHATODA.

28. RHINACANTHUS.

Sect. 3. HYPOESTEÆ. Flower appearing as though en-
closed between two bracts. Placenta in fruit not rising
elastically:-
--

Anther-cells 2, one placed higher

Sect. 4. SOLUTE. Placentæ rising in fruit elastically from the base of the capsule, and throwing out the seeds:— Flowers in spikes, with prominent bracts

1. THUNBERGIA, Linn. f.

29. LEDA.

30. POLYTREMA.

31. ECBOLIUM.

32. GRAPTOPHYLLUM.

33. PERISTROPHE.

34. HYPOESTES.

35. RUNGIA.

[Character narrowed, as throughout Acanthacea, to the Malay Peninsula species.]

Twiners. Leaves petioled, opposite, subequal, undivided, often toothed or lobed. Peduncles solitary, axillary, running into terminal racemes, i. e. the upper floral leaves (or bracts) greatly reduced, inconspicuous or obsolete. Bracteoles (prophylla) large, often 5 in. long, broad-oblong from a truncate base. Calyx of 8 to 14 small lanceolate teeth, or obsolete (appears a mere rim). Corolla large; tube cylindric or campanulate; limb of 5 subequal lobes, contorted in the bud. Stamens 4, subsimilar; anther-cells 2, parallel, sometimes strongly spurred at the base; pollen large (50 to 60 μ in diam.), globose, smooth, with faint spiral bands or strongly spinous. Ovary 2-celled, with 2 ovules in each cell; stigma of 2 equal, opposite, triangular lobes. Capsule globose, with a long oblong-linear beak; seeds 4, or by suppression 3 to 2, hemispheric, excavate on the plane face, wrinkled on the spheric face; sessile, not held aloft on retinacula.-DISTRIB. Species 100, in the warm parts of the Old World; most numerous in Africa, extending to Australia.

Sect. 1. Calyx a mere rim. Anther-cells spurred. Pollen smooth :