Misidentified Iconotype

[veldkamp]

Dear Carlos,

Just back from holidays I see your request. No doubt you have had a number
of responses and this one may therefore be redundant.

Rheede van Drakenstein wrote a 12-volume Hortus malabaricus (1678--1693)
with folio-sized illustrations. These usually are rather crude, but because
of the uses of the plants and their local names it has been possible aided
by field studies in S India, to identify all but one of them: Rumphia L.,
Sp. Pl. (11753) 1193., based on Tsjem-tani Rheede, Hort. Malab. 4 (1683)
25--26, t. 11. See Nicolson, et al., Regn. Veg. 119 (1988) 319, for
speculations on its identity.

This genus was named after Rumphius, who wrote a similar series on plants
from C Indonesia: the Herbarium amboinense (6 vols.: 1741--1750). This is
till the best account for the area! There have been a few attempts to check
the book against field data, but all had tragic endings, and there are
still many species described and depicted of which the identity is
uncertain. The last summary is by Merrill, An interpretation of Rumphius'
Herbarium amboinense (1917 !).

Hope this helps,

JeF

Dr. J.F. Veldkamp
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland, Universiteit Leiden branch
POB 9514
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
e-mail: veldkamp at nhn.leidenuniv.nl
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