Page I
MEMOIRS
READ BEFORE THE
BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY;
BEING A NEW SERIES
OF THE
BOSTON JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY.
VOLUME I.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
NEW YORK: WILLIAM WOOD & CO., 61 WALKER STR.; B. WESTERMANN & CO., 440 BROADWAY;
L. W. SCHMIDT, 24 BARCLAY ST.
LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW, F. C
1866-1869.
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page 529
XV. Notes on Alsinidendron, Platydesma, and Brighamia, New Genera of Hawaiian Plants; with an Analysis of the Hawaiian Flora. By HORACE MANN.
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page 531
LOBELIACEÆ.
BRIGHAMIA A. Gray. Plate XXIII.
Calyx tubo oblongo eximie decem-costato, dentibus parvulis. Corolla hypocraterimorpha; tubo prælongo fere recto antice sinubus duobus profundius fisso ; lobis ovato-oblongis æqualiter patentibus consimilibus, nisi duobus anticis longiter unguiculatis. Columna staminea corollæ, tubo infra medium (postice altius) adnata; synanthera subinclusa apice recurvo barbata. Ovarium biloculare. Stigma bilobum, nudum. Capsula primum carnosa, loculis demum rimis duabus longitudinaliter dehiscentibus. Semina oblonga ; testa tenuiter crustacea læviuscula; embryo rectus albumine oleoso brevior. Arbuscula Hawaiiensis, carnosa, glabra; caule orgyali simplicissimo folia obovata subintegerrima creberrime quasi capitatim conferta gerente ; pedunculis axillaribus folio brevioribus apice racemoso-paucifloris ; floribus pedicello recto haud resupinatis albis.
Brighamia insignis A. Gray. Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sc., Vol. VII, p. 185.
Stem simple, five to fifteen feet high, naked except at top. Leaf scars mostly obliterated at the base where the circumference is often two feet. Leaves six to ten inches long, simple, obovate, more or less cup-shaped, with a short fleshy petiole extending through the leaf as a prominent midrib, collected in a sort of head at the summit of the stem, in color light, vivid green. Peduncles stout and fleshy, three to five inches long; the thick ascending pedicels half an inch or an inch long; bracts deciduous. Calyx-teeth much shorter than the tube, oblong-linear, slightly accrescent and persistent in the ripe fruit. Corolla showy, slightly fragrant, white with a tinge of cream-color, greenish in bud; the rather slender tube four to six inches long, slightly incurved; the five lobes when expanded about an inch long, thickish, valvate in aestivation, and flat so as to give a pentagonal section to the bud; the pointed tips indexed, in size and position nearly equal and regular as in Isotoma. but the two anterior lobes separated from each other and from the lateral ones by sinuses forming narrow claws of nearly the same length as the lobe. The anther tube is half an inch long, scarcely projecting beyond the cleft of the corolla, straight with the apex abruptly curved towards the upper side of the flower, and tipped with a uniform tuft of beard, otherwise glabrous. Stigma neither bearded nor indusiate, of two small and flat rounded lobes. Ovary acutely and nearly equably ten-ribbed. Fruit capsular, three fourths of an inch long, fleshy-coriaceous, ten-ribbed, green when ripe, with a purplish tinge at the base of the persistent calyx-teeth, white inside ; each cell opening by two equi-distant, longitudinal, intercostal chinks or clefts extending from just below the apex to the base. Seeds very numerous, half a line long. Described by Dr. Gray from a specimen collected by Jules Remy, communicated by the Paris Museum, and from specimens collected by William T. Brigham, Esq., including fruit and flowers in alcohol.
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Dr. Gray remarks that the resemblance of this plant to Isotoma is mainly in the great length and general form of the corolla, but its true relationship is evidently with the unfortunately little-known Sclerotheca arborea, D C. (Lobelia arborea, Forst.) of Tahiti. In that, however, so far as is made out, the corolla is no longer than the foliaceous calyx-lobes, and cleft to the base, and the capsule opens at the vertex by two round pores. The one-flowered peduncle is of small moment, as it is bibracteolate.
Mr. Brigham found this very interesting lobeliaceous plant on the side of steep, rocky cliffs near Halawa, on the eastern end of the island of Molokai. Remy's specimens were marked "Kauai or Niihau," and the former island is certainly its habitat, while in all probability it is not found on Oahu, the intervening island. The juice of the stem is rather watery, and shows none of the glutinous, milky exudation which is so general with the other Hawaiian Lobeliaceæ.
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