Notes on African Araliaceae: II

Abstract

Cussonia umbellifera Sond. in Linnaea 23, 49 (1850) The examination of plants formerly determined as Cussonia buchananii Harms in the British Museum (Natural History), at Kew and in the East African Herbarium, Nairobi, were found when sorted on a basis of leafletshape to fall into two well-defined groups closely correlated with habitat. Harms described the species, citing two syntypes as follows:-Nyasaland, without precise locality, (1895) Buchanan 295 and Tanganyika, Morogoro District, Uluguru Mts., Lukwangule Plateau, 21oo m. (Nov. 1894), Stuhlmann 9112. Iso-syntypes of the former are at Edinburgh and the British Museum, and a duplicate sheet from the latter institution has recently been received at Kew. Authentic material of the latter syntype has not been seen; the material of the family as a whole was destroyed in the herbarium of the Botanisches Museum, Berlin-Dahlem, during the last war, and duplicates of Stuhlmann 9 112 were possibly not distributed, at least no material has been found at Kew or the British Museum, and when the authorities at Hamburg were approached nothing was found there. Buchanan 295 agrees well with other Nyasaland material, and the group thus typified very nearly grades into C. umbellifera [known first from woods near Port Natal and in grassy hills between Osamculo and Omcomas] with which union is here proposed by reducing C. buchananii Harms pro parte to a variety. var. umbellifera