Additional Notes on Degeneria vitiensis

With one plate and one text-figure When the family Degeneriaceae was proposed in 1942 by Prof. I. W. Bailey and the writer, it must have seemed to some readers that we were highly optimistic in suggesting that a new species based on only two known collections be immediately established as representing a monotypic family.Few plant families have such an abrupt inception.It is more traditional to refer a genus of doubtful affinities to some presumably allied family, in which it may languish for many years or decades, until the researches of monographers exclude it from all likely families and establish that it merits family rank.Even then the position of the genus is suspect, for many herbarium custodians are allergic to monotypic or small families and, rather than alter their system, cling to unwieldy plant-groupings which have no morphological justification.Whether the family Degeneriaceae will be accepted in herbaria or will be thrust into a distended "magnoliaceous" concept (which already in some herbaria includes highly discordant elements) remains to be seen.However, in 1942 Prof. Bailey and I could not bring ourselves to place our new genus Degeneria in either the Magnoliaceae or Himantandraceae, clearly the only existing families of its immediate alliance.The discovery of a third collection, from southeastern Viti Levu (cf.Bull.Torrey Club 70: 537.1943), did not add to our knowledge of the morphology of the genus.In order to verify our conclusions or to make possible a reevaluation of our family concept, new material for morphological and ■ anatomical study was clearly desirable.Consequently, when I had an opportunity to undertake a second collecting trip to Fiji in 1947, 1 one of 1 The collections upon which this study is primarily based were obtained in Fiji between April, 1947, and