NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
4
Scientific Memoirs by
assumed by him to be A. africana differs from A. bracteata in having no
posterior staminodes. If this was his experience with any Afzelia, a doubt arises
as to the specific identity of Baillon's A. africana either with the A. africana of
Smith and DeCandolle or with the A. africana of Guillemin, Perrottet and Richard.
In all the flowers of Guillemin's A; africana examined by the writer the two
Posterior staminodes have been present. In any case the authority for the-
belief that Afzelia ever has 6 fertile stamens is this drawing by Fitch, whose
accuracy neither Baillon nor the writer have succeeded in confirming ; while the
belief that Afzelia ever has 8 fertile stamens is not based on observation but on - a
deduction which is opposed to the evidence available. It would be rash to assert
that the variation postulated by Bentham and Taubert will never be met with.
There is, however, no proof that it has been met with hitherto either in A. bracteata
or in A. africana ; repeated examination of flowers of both these species by the
writer confirms the accuracy of Baillon's diagram of the former and of Decaisne's
diagram of the latter. According to Hiern, a variation in the number of the
stamens is, however, characteristic of a third species, A. quanzensis Welw.,
which is stated (Cat. Pl. Welw. i.2 8 8 ) t o h a v e 9 - 7 s t a m e n s w i t h 7 - 5 o f t h e m
fertile. Baker (Flor. Brit. Ind. ii. 274) has claimed for Afzelia that all 9 stamens
may be at times fertile. This last, however, is not a claim that can be
substantiated ; it is made because Baker has treated as an Afzelia a Malayan
tree that is in reality a Sindora.
Of more importance than their variation in number is another feature men-
tioned by Hiern as characteristic of the stamens of A. quanzensis. The filaments
in A. africana and A. brabteata are free ; in A. quanzensis, of which the writer
has not seen a specimen, the filaments are said by Hiern to be more or less
connate below.
The three species alluded to so far are West African. In East Africa also
occur trees that are at least congeneric with those of the west. Klotzsch has des-
cribed two such, Afzelia Petersiana and A. attenuata, both from Mozambique.
Oliver has identified the former with A. quanzensis and has expressed himself
unable to characterise the latter. Kuntze appears to be doubtful on both points
(Rev. Gen. Plant. i) and Hiern has not accepted either of Oliver's reductions in
his citations under A. quanzensis. The writer has seen no specimens of these
Mozambique trees; their flowers are apparently unknown. Their fruits and seeds,
from the descriptions, are clearly those of Afzelia.
The species here treated as Afzelias are all characterised by having thick
woody dehiscent pods septate between the bony-hard arillate seeds The
flowers, where known, have one large petal with a 2-lobed lamina shorter than
Medical Officers of the Army of India.
5
the long claw ; the stamens are 7 fertile, with a pair of staminodes between the
uppermost pair of fertile stamens and the posterior petal. We have now to
consider another group of species characterised by much compressed, thickly
coriaceous, indehiscent pods not septate between the seeds, which though firm
are not of bony hardness and have besides no arillus. The flowers have again
one petal, but this is not very much longer than the calyx, the lamina is entire
orbicular, longer than the short claw ; the stamens are 3 fertile with an intercalated
pair of staminodes and with usually 2 pairs of staminodes between the lateral
fertile stamens and the posterior petal. The earliest notice of this group is
the account by Rumphius in Herb. Amboin. iii, 21 (1750) of Metrosideros amboin--
ensis, Caju Bessi or Amboina Iron Wood. In this chapter Rumphius describes
three trees that appear to him to be distinct ; he terms them Metrosideros
a m b o i n - e n s i s m a s , M . a m b o i n e n s i s f o e m i n aa
n d a f o r m o f
f o e m i n a
w i t h l o n g e r , m o r e
numerous and more acute leaflets. The tree which Rumphius describes as
Metrosideros amboinensis foemina is the usual form of the species for which the
most familiar synonym is Afzelia bijuga A. Gray ; that which he describes as
mas is, perhaps, only another form of the same species. The variety of f o e m i n a
to which he refers appears to be Intsia palembanica Miq., which is not the same
thing, however, as Afzelia palembanica Baker. In 1790 Loureiro, Flor. Cochin-
chin. 266, suggested that the trees described by Rumphius might be the same
as his own Baryxylum rufum, a tree from N. Cochin China, whose affinities are
still doubtful. This suggestion cannot be accepted. Loureiro's tree, whatever it
may be, has a 5-lobed calyx and 10 stamens ; the trees described by Rumphius
have a 4-lobed calyx and only 3 fertile stamens.
Sixteen years later Du Petit Thouars founded the genus Intsia on a Mas-
carene tree for which the vernacular name in Madagascar is Intsi [Gen. Nov.
Madagasc. (1806) n. 75, p. 22 ; Roemer, Collectanea (1809) n. 75, p. 212
Thouars suggested that his tree might possibly be the same as the Caju Bessi
of Rumphius. Thouars provided no specific name for the Madagascar tree.
DeCandolle, in the Prodromus, i i 5 0 9 ( 1 8 2 6 ) a c c e p t e d T h o u a r s ' g e n u s a n d
provided for the Madagascar species the name Intsia madagascariensis.
Thouars' further suggestion he only partially and tentatively adopted by naming
the Caju Bessi of Rumphius Intsia ? amboinensis. It now turns out that the
suggestion of Thouars was right ; the Intsi of Madagascar and the Caju Bessi
of Amboina are one and the same widely distributed littoral species which extends
from Madagascar and the Seychelles in the west to Fiji in the east. A typogra
-phical error, left uncorrected in the Prodromus, attributes a 5-partite calyx to Intsia.
The original diagnosis of Thouars correctly states that the calyx is 4-partite.
B
6
Scientific Memoirs by
This tree has given much trouble to taxonomists. In 1817 it was described
and figured by Colebrooke (Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. 359. t. 17) as Macrolobium
bijugun. The various species of Macrolobium were distributed by DeCandolle in
the Prodromus under Vouapa with a 4-partite, and Outea with a 5-partite
calyx. Not observing that Macrolobium bijugum was in reality identical with
his own Intsia madagascariensis, DeCandolle re-named it Outea bijugun.W h y i t
was placed in Outea rather than in Vouapa, is not exactly clear ; Colebrooke
had correctly described and figured the calyx as 4-partite. The name Outea
bijuga was used by Wallich when in 1830 he distributed the East India Com-
-pany's herbarium. In 1832 was published Roxburgh's Flora indica ; here we
find that Roxburgh had treated this tree as a Fonesia (Saraca), F. triandra,
which is not, however; the same thing as Saraca triandra Baker.
The next important reference to the genus is that by Blanco, Flor. Filipin.
368 (1837), where it is considered to be the same as Eperua Aubl. ;
Blanco's Eperua decandra, though described without fruit, is very obviously the
wide-spread species Afzelia bijuga, Gray. The name indicates that Blanco had
seen flowers with the vexillary stamen represented by a staminode, a condition
that, in several hundreds of flowers examined by him, the writer has not yet met
with. Blanco described a second species, Eperua falcata Blanco (loc. cit 369)
not of Aublet, which, in the subsequent editions of his work, is termed E.
rhom-boidea and which Vidal, at least, has since treated as an Afzelia. As its seeds
are arillate, E. rhomboidea is not congeneric with E. aecandra ; from Blanco's
description either the tree ought not to be a Leguminous one, or he has in that
description mixed up two trees, of different natural families.
Nearly twenty years later three rather important references to the same tree
appeared almost simultaneously. These are notices by A. Gray, But. of the U. 8.
Exped. 467, t. 51 (1854) ; by Miquel, Flor. Ind. Bat. i. 80 (1855) ; and by
Hasskarl, Retzia i. 199 k1856). Gray's view was that the tree is congeneric
with Afzelia Smith ; he named it Afze lia bijuga in consequence. Miguel's view
was that the genus intsia should be sustained ; he accordingly adopted DeCan--
dolle's name Intsia amboinensis, though by an oversight he attributed that name
to Thouars.* Hasskarl, without apparently being aware of the fact, adopted the
view that Roxburgh had held, and named the tree fonesia minopetala. The
view advocated by Gray is that which has been accepted in the Genera
Plan-tarum by Bentham, in the Histoire des Plantes by Baillon, and in the
Naturli hen Pflanzenfamilien by Taubert. The last mentioned author, it is
true, adopts the name Intsia instead of Afzelia, but he does so on bibliographical
* Baker (Flor Maurit 90) does the same as regards
I. madagascariensis ; Kuntze (Rev. Gen. Plant. i. 192)
makes this mistake with both.
8
S c i e n t i f i c
M e m o i r s b y .
complicated, Miquel treated his own- Pahudia, when he did get fruits, as Intsia;
his Intsia puberula (Flor. Ind. Bat. Suppl. 290) is certainly a P a h u d i a
and is probably his own P. javanica. Bentham, Gen. Plant, i. 58o (1865)
accepted the genus, therefore, only as it was originally defined, remarking, how-
-ever, that it appears to differ from Afzelia merely in having monadelphous stamens.
Baillon, Hist. des Plantesi i
( 1 8 6 9 ) , h a s ( p a g e
1 1 2
, d o u b t f u l l y ; p a g e
1 8 4 ,
definitely) included Pahudia in Afzelia. Kurz, in dealing with another species,
P. xylocarpa, has, Fourn. As. Soc. .Beng. xlv. 2. 290 (1876) and For. Flor. Brit.
Burma i 413, satisfactorily vindicated the right of Miquel's Pahudia to gen-
eric rank, as apart from the Afzelia of Indian systematic treatises, all the species
of which are species of lntsia and not of Afzelia. But Kurz's account of the pod
and the seed, which is quite accurate, indicates that Baillon's proposal is not
only justifiable but necessary ; the pod and the seed of Pahudia are identical
with those of Afzelia proper. The differences between Afzelia and Pahudia are
that the posterior petal of Pahudia is, like that of .Intsia, small, not 2-lobed, with
a claw that is shorter than the lamina, while the filaments, instead of being free as
in Afzelia africana and A. bracteata . are united below in a sheath split along the
upper side. The number of fertile stamens is, however, the same in P a h u d i a
as in Afzelia, and we find between the staminal sheath and the petal in P ahudia
the same pair of sterile filaments that are met with between the uppermost
fertile stamens and the petal in Afzelia. Hien's discovery that in the African
Afzelia quanzensis the filaments, in place of being free, are more or less united at
the base invalidates any proposal to consider the difference between free and
connate filaments a generic difference. The only diagnostic characters therefore
left are those provided by the posterior petal. But these differences, though
striking, afford after all only relative characters and, While we may probably be
justified in considering Afzelia and Pahudia as sectionally separable, we cannot
treat them as .subgenerically, still less as generically distinct.
This demonstration of the true natural relationships of Inisia, Afzelia and
Pahudia involves unfortunately some dislocation of synonymy. This, so far as
Intsia is concerned, cannot be avoided. That genus is much too natural and dis-
tinct to remain longer unrecognised. Some of its species have already been
treated as Intsias ; with these, it is merely a question of restoring the original
name. Unfortunately, as regards Afzelia and Pahudia, which now prove to be
congeneric, the matter is more difficult. Thee writer proposes, as the least of
two evils, to employ Miquel's name in preference to Smith's one. It is true that
the name Pahudia is less familiar than the name Afzelia and is not so old.
Afzelia Smith, is not, however, the . only Afzelia, nor is it the oldest one.
Mett-slein - (N aturlich. Pfanzenfam.) and Hooker and Jackson (Index Kewens.),
Medical Officers of the Army of India.
9
though fully aware that the original Afzelia Gmelin is the oldest name for
Seymeria Pursh, have refrained from reinstating it, because the species of that
genus are better known as Seymerias. Had there been in the present instance no
question of reduction, the writer, whose sympathies are wholly with the attitude of
Hooker and of Wettstein, would have proposed that the name Afzelia Smith
should continue to be employed for the genus first properly characterised by Guil-
lemin, Perrottet and Richard. Seeing, however, that a reduction must take place,
for if Afzelia is not merged in Pahudia, Pahudia must be absorbed by Afzelia, it
seems better to adopt, as the name for the genus, that term to which least excep-
-tion can be taken. Not only is there the difficulty that the existence of an
older Afzelia creates, there are two important practical reasons for the abandon--
ment of the name Afzelia Smith. The familiarity of that name, which under
ordinary circumstances would be one of the strongest pleas for its retention, is
here one of the best reasons for its suppression. That familiarity is mainly due,
not to its use in connexion with the 3 or 4 African species to which its employ--
ment in the Senegal. and Niger Floras has rendered it applicable, but to its use
in connexion with the 5 or 6 Malayan species of Intsia to which it should never
have been applied. Moreover, there is still some dubiety as regards Smith's
Afzelia. None of the species hitherto found possesses a corolla like that des--
cribed by Smith. However satisfied we may feel that these African Afzelias do
really belong to Smith's genus of that name, there is no certainty that even yet
we have been made acquainted with his original species. If we have, then Smith's
original characterisation was so imperfect as almost to justify, on this ground alone,
the abandonment of his name.
The fact that a species of Sindora has been tentatively placed by Baker
in Afzelia (Maingay had already in the field considered this particular species an
Intsia, while more recently Koorders and Valeton, realising that the tree in question
cannot be an Afzelia or Intsia, have suggested that it may be a Pahudia) neces-
sitates a reference to this genus. The seeds of this species, as of all the species
of Sindora where the seeds are known, have exactly the structure of the seeds of
Pahudia and of Afzelia proper, and are quite unlike those of any Intsia. The
fruits are, moreover, in this as in most if not all of the species, dehiscent. These
facts lend colour to the idea which Koorders and Valeton have entertained (Bijdr.
ii. 27); their suggestion is not, however, really more acceptable than those of
Maingay and Baker. The calyx-tube and disk in this plant are very short ; the
fruit is only loculicidally dehiscent by the dorsal suture ; the pods have thin
coriaceous valves not thick woody ones. The stamens of Sindora are also very
different from those of Afzelia or Pahudia. In the first place the tenth or
vexillary stamen is represented by a free filament between the ovary and the
c
petal, either reduced to a short antherless staminode or bearing a small empty
anther. The remaining 9 are all connate in a short sheath, and—most marked
distinction of all—the two nearest to the petal, in place of being reduced to
staminodes as in Afzelia and Pahudia have larger anthers and longer filaments
than any of the remaining 7 ; at times, indeed, they are the only perfect stamens
in the flower. The other filaments are alternately shorter and longer, the four
shorter being, like the vexillary stamen, either antherless or provided with small
empty anthers, the three longer appear always to be antheriferous, but the anthers
seem to be sometimes devoid of pollen.
The genus Sindora has given quite as much trouble to taxonomists as Intsia
and Afzelia have done. It was first published by Rumphius, Herb. Amboin. t 13 ,
as Caju Galeaupa. It thus became, by citation, part of Lamarck's genus Gale-
dupa and actually supplied that genus with a name. The description of Galedu-
pa, however, relates only to the tree which is the Pongam of Rheede and, it may
be remarked, though this Lamarck did not know, the Malaparus of Rumphius,
the Pongamia of modern botanical works. This being so, the oldest name
for Sindora is, in a sense, the term Galedupa.
Graham in 1830 (Cat. of the Hon. E. I. Coy's. Herb.) referred a second
species of this genus to Guilxndina. Miquel in 1860, from fruiting specimens
only, founded on a third species the genus Sindora (Flor. Ind. Bat. Suppl.
286) while Bentham, in 1865, founded on a fourth, from flowering specimens only,
the genus Echinocalyx (Gen. Plant. i. 584). Bentham, however, expressed at
the time a presentiment that Sindora and Echinocalyx might prove congeneric.
Two years later he was able to confirm this surmise (Icon. Plantar. xi (1867),
I t. 1017, 1018). Four years afterwards Baillon showed, Adansonia x.
104 (1871), that yet another generic name, Grandiera, had been suggested by
Lefévre for a fifth species. A sixth species, as we have seen, has been referred
to Intsia by Maingay, to Afzelia by Baker, and to Pahudia by Koorders and
Valeton. No fewer than eight generic names, therefore, have been associated with
this genus. There are, so far as is yet known, nine species.
As a genus, Sindora is natural and well characterised. Bentham has consid-
ered that its affinities are with Cynometra and its allies, and has placed it in
Cynometreae. The very short calyx-tube doubtless is in favour of this position,
and this character, with those of free stipules and partially valvate calyx lobes,
certainly makes it very distinct from the group of forms to which Saraca, Instia,
Afzelia and Pahudia belong. At the same time, the stamens are not very sugr-
gestive of the tribe Cynometreae, while the fruit and seed would seem to indicate
a greater affinity with Amherstieae. This is the view that was originally held by
Miquel. Too much weight should not, however, be placed on these characters ; it
Medical Officers of the Army of India.
does not necessarily follow that characters which are useful in separating general
need also be of value in grouping them. The writer at one time was prepared to
adopt the view of Miquel rather than that of Bentham (Fourn. As. Soc. Bung.
1XVi. 2. 202). Both authors worked with incomplete material before them, and
the conclusion of each was, under the circumstances, equally natural. Further
study of the sub-order Cœsalpinieae leads the writer to advocate the necessity for
retaining an open mind ;the genus Sindora rather affords evidence against any
need for the separation of Amherstieae from Cynometreae than marks itself
definitely as a member of either tribe.
The majority, though not all of the species—the original Galedupa of Rum-
phius and the Intsia coriacea of Maingay being exceptions—are characterised by
having the outer faces of the pod armed with strong straight hollow spines. In
S. siamensis, the only species known to the writer in the living state, the iips of
these spines exude large drops of a pale-white, translucent, very adhesive, fragrant
resin. The hard cotyledons, when sawn across, have the odour of cocoanut oil.
Intsia Thouars.
GEN. Nov. MADAGAS. N. 75. 22 (1806).
Calycistubus discifer elongatus ; segmenta 4, decussatim imbricata, coriacea,
interioribus 2 vix majoribus. Petalum I, unguiculatum, orbiculatum, integrum, in-
feriorum rudimenta parva vel o. Stamina 9, perfecta tantum 3 sepalis antico
lateralibusque opposita, libera ; summum vexillare o ; superiora per paria 4, sterilia,
omnia ananthera vel suprema rarissime antheris minutis cassis instructa, 2 etiam
sterilia ananthera inter stamina anticum ac lateralia ; fertilia filamentis elongatis ;
antheræ ovatæ loculis longitudinaliter dehiscentibus. Ovarium stipitatum sipite
calycis tubo hinc adnato, ovulis paucis vel subnumerosis ; stylus filiformis
stig-mate parvo terminali. Legumen oblongum compressum coriaceum indehiscens inter
semina pulpa tenui farctum. Semina suborb i culata crassa basi exarillata; albumen
o; cotyledones crassæ coriaceæ compressæ ; radicula brevis, recta, inclusa.—
Arbores inermes. Folia abrupte pinnata, foliolis tenuiter coriaceis, paucijugis.
Stipulæ minutæ connatae, interpetiolares, caclucæ. Flores racemosi, racemis in
paniculas terminales dispositi.
Metrosideros Rumph. (pro Parte) Herb. Amboin. iii 21, t. 10 . (1750).
Baryxylum Lour. (pro parte) Flor. Cochin-Chin. 267 (1790).
Macrolobium Colebr. Trans Linn. Soc. xii 359. t. 17 (1817) ; Zippel ex
Walp. Ann. iv. 610 (1857) : nec Schreb.
Intsia Thouars in Roemer, Collectan. 212 (1809) ; DC. Prodr. ii. 509
(1825) ; Miq. Flor. Ind. Bat. i. I. 80 (1855).
12
Scientific Memoirs by
Outea DC. (pro parte) Prodr.
ii. 511 (1825) : nec Aubl.
Jonesia Roxb. (pro parte) Flor. Ind. ii. 220 (1832); Hassk. Retzia i. 199
(1856).
Eperua Blanco, Flor. Filipin. 368 (1,837) : nec Aubl.
Afzelia A. Gray, Bot. U. S. Exped. 467, t. 51 (1854) ; Bak. Flor. Maurit.
90 (1877) ; Bak. in Hook. f. Flor. Brit. Ind. ii. 274 (1878) ; Koord.
et Valet. Bijdr. ii 31 (1895) ; Prain, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. lxvi. 2.
208 (1897) : nec Smith.
Afzelia § Intsia Benth. in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. i. 581 (1865).
Intsia § Euintsia Taub. in Engl. et Prantl, Naturlich. Pflanzenfam. iii.
3. 140 (1891).
1. INTSIA BIJUGA O. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. i. 192 (1891). Macrolobium
bijugum Colebr. Trans. Linn. Soc. xii. 359. t. 17 (1817). Intsia
madagas-cariensis DC. Prodr.
i i 5 0 9 ( 1 8 2 6 ) ; B o j e r , H o r t . M a u r i t .4
2 2 ( 1 8 3 7 ) ; O .
Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. 192 (1891). I. amboinensis DC. Prodr. ii. 509 (1826) ;
Miq. Flor. Ind. Bat. i. 1. 80 (1855) ; Miq. Flor. Ind. Bat. Suppl. i. 288 (1860).
Outea bijuga DC. Prodr. ii 511 (1826) ; Wall. Cat. 5823 (1830). Fonesia
triandra Roxb. Flor. Ind. ii. 220 (1832). F.monopetala Hassk. Retzia i.199
(1856). Eperua decandra Blanco, Flor. Filipin. 368 (1837). Afzelia bijuga
A. Gray, Bot. U. S. Exped.467. t. 51 (1854) ; Walp. Ann. iv. 594 (1857) ; Seem.
Flor. Vit. 69 (1868) ; Bak. Flor. Maurit. go (1877) ; Bak. in Hook. f. Flor.
Brit. Ind. ii. 274 (1878) ; Bail. in Grandidier, Hist. Madagasc. xxviii. t. 27
(1886) ; Koord. et Valet., Bijdr. ii 3 1 ( 1 8 9 5 ) ; P r a i n , J o u r n . A s . S o c . B e n g . l x v i .
2. 208 (1897): non Spreng. A. madagascariensis Baill. Hist. des Plantes ii. 112
(1869). Pahudia Hasskarliana Miq. Flor. Ind. Bat. i. 1081 (1855). P. i nsi gni s
Teysm. ex Miq. Flor. Ind. Bat. Suppl. 288 (1860).
Madagascar; Seychelles ; Andamans ; Nicobars; Singapore ; Sumatra;
Java ; Borneo ; Celebes ; Sunda Islands ; Amboina ; Ceram ; New
Guinea ; Philippines ; Fiji.
Blanco describes the Philippine plant as having ten stamens ; Baillon
(Hist. Madgasc,) has figured it as having eight. In both cases the vexillary
stamen is represented by a staminode, which is unusual ; the writer in examin-
ing several hundreds of flowers has been unable to find it. In Baillon's figure
the pair of staminodes that in normal flowers stand nearest to the claw of the
petal are wanting.
2. INTSIA RETUSA O. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. i. 192 (1891). Afzelia
retusa Kurz, Journ. As. Soc. Beng. xlii. 2. 73 (1873) ; Kurz, For. Flor. Brit.
Burm. i. 412 (1877) ; Bak. in Hook. f. Flor. Brit. Ind, ii. 274 (1878); Prain,
Journ. As, Soc. Beng. lxvi. 2. 207 (1897).