Shinobu Akiyama

The systematic position ofAsplenium cardiophyllum (Aspleniaceae)

Asplenium cardiophyllum is a morphologically unusual species with simple leaves and anastomosing venation, and is often placed in the segregate genusBoniniella. To determine its systematic position, character comparisons were made of vascular anatomy, raphides in leaf epidermis, chromosome number and perispore of this species and those ofAsplenium sect.Hymenasplenium. Asplenium cardiophyllum conforms with sect.Hymenasplenium in its dorsiventral dictyostele, the presence of raphides, a chromosome number of 2n=156 (x=39), and lophate peristore with spinulate projections on the lumina. We therefore propose to includeA. cardiophyllum in that section.

The branching of the inflorescence and vegetative shoot and taxonomy of the genusKummerowia (Leguminosae)

A study of the branching of the inflorescence and the vegetative shoot of the genusKummerowia, consisting ofK. stipulacea (Maxim.) Makino andK. striata (Thunb.) Schindler, has led to the following conclusions: (1) the inflorescences of both species are reduced compound cymes, (2) the branching system of the inflorescence ofKummerowia is not clearly different from that of the vegetative shoot and there are some transitional forms between both systems, and (3) the inflorescence ofKummerowia is different from the racemose inflorescences ofLespedeza andCampylotropis. Based on the differences found in the branching system of the inflorescence,Kummerowia is distinctly separated fromLespedeza andCampylotropis and is more correctly treated as a distinct genus from the latter two.

Systematics of Himalayan Seed Plants

Many national and international projects to prepare floristic treatments for Asian countries are in progress throughout the world. Amongst these are a number of projects focusing on the Himalayan region. The Flora of Bhutan, of which the first part was published in 1983, was completed when volume 3, part 2, dealing with the Orchidaceae, was published in 2002. The completion of the Flora of Bhutan marked the start of a new epoch in floristic research on the Himalayan region following the last major work for the area, Hooker’s The Flora of British India (1872–1897). This major achievement was brought about by the late Andrew J. C. Grierson and his successor, David G. Long, of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and other botanists. In Sikkim, now a part of India, a flora project was begun by the Botanical Survey of India after the establishment of the Sikkim Himalayan Circle of the Botanical Survey of India at Gangtok in 1979. In 1996, the first volume of that flora was published. For the western Himalaya, Karakorum and Kashmir have been treated as a part of the Flora of Pakistan compiled first by E. Nasir and S.I. Ali, and later by S.I. Ali and M. Qaiser since 1970.