New and little known Malayan plants

H. N. Ridley, Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, published this second series of new and little-known Malayan plants in 1905, describing approximately thirty-five new taxa across eight plant families collected from the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Siam, and the Philippines. The paper’s central thesis is that the forested interior of the Malay Peninsula—particularly the Kamuning and Semangkok regions—remains a richly underexplored botanical province, yielding species of considerable taxonomic and biogeographic significance.

Summary

Ridley’s second series follows the same format as its predecessor: a catalogue of new species, each accompanied by a morphological description, locality, collector, and brief comparative notes. The collections derive from a network of field workers operating across the peninsula and Borneo, including Dr. Gimlette in Kelantan, Mr. Rostado in Tringanu, Mr. Machado in Perak, and Mr. Burn-Murdoch in the Semangkok Pass of Selangor, alongside Ridley’s own extensive personal collections. The Singapore Botanic Gardens serves as the working laboratory where many of these specimens were flowered and studied, a fact Ridley notes repeatedly when describing species that had not been seen in flower at the time of collection.

The paper spans a wide taxonomic range, from minute orchids and saprophytic Burmanniaceae to towering bamboos and palms. Ridley devotes particular attention to two discoveries of broader biogeographic interest. The first is Joinvillea malayana, a reed-like Flagellariaceae from Perak and Selangor that is more closely allied to a Hawaiian species than to the New Caledonian representative of the genus—a distributional pattern Ridley finds without clear parallel in the Malayan flora. The second, and most remarkable, is Borassus machadonis, an indigenous Palmyra Palm discovered by Machado in the dense forests of Kamuning, Perak. Ridley had long considered Borassus a single-species genus native to Africa and India, introduced to the East as a sacred tree of the Hindus and established only in sandy coastal or temple settings. The discovery of a genuinely forest-dwelling, thornless-petioled species in the interior of Perak fundamentally revised the known range and diversity of the genus.

The remaining descriptions, while individually less momentous, collectively demonstrate the floristic richness of specific localities. The Kamuning woods in Perak, where Machado worked, emerge as a particularly productive site, yielding new species of Saccolabium, Dendrocolla, Pinanga, and the Borassus. The Semangkok Pass in Selangor, explored by Burn-Murdoch, contributes a new Alpinia and a new bamboo. Ridley also records ethnobotanical uses, such as the root of Raphiedophora falcata being applied to children’s heads as an anthelmintic in Siam, and the native name “Chang-hai” for the new Borassus.

Key Findings

• Borassus machadonis (native name “Chang-hai”) was discovered in dense forest at Kamuning, Perak, by Mr. Machado; it is distinguished from the introduced B. flabelliformis by its entirely thornless petiole, blade split to the base, three-lobed calyx, and narrow petals of the male flower (pp. 203–205).
• Joinvillea malayana, a Flagellariaceae from the Thaiping Hills (Perak) and Semangkok Pass (Selangor), is more closely allied to a Hawaiian species than to the New Caledonian species, a distributional pattern Ridley considers unique in the Malayan flora (pp. 199–200).
• Dendrocalamus pendulus, a bamboo with culms approximately 60 feet tall and 3 inches in diameter, was collected at 2,000 feet altitude on the Selangor–Pahang Track; it had long been cultivated in the Singapore Botanic Gardens but had not flowered there until Ridley obtained flowering material from the wild (pp. 210–211).
• Alpinia murdochii, named for collector A. M. Burn-Murdoch, was found at Semangkok Pass in February 1904 and at Sempang Mines; it is remarkable for its unusually short lip, little longer than the stamen (pp. 196–197).
• Pinanga acanlis, a dwarf palm with a stem barely 4 inches long, was discovered in abundance by Machado in the Kamuning woods; it is unique in Pinanga for its extremely short stem covered by old leaf sheaths from which a short double spathe protrudes (pp. 202–203).
• Mnesithea pubescens, from rocky cliffs at Minyak Buku, Johore, is distinguished from the two previously known species of the genus by the pubescence of its leaves and spikes and by curious perforations in the outer glume, each bearing a single hair (pp. 207–208).

Conclusion

Ridley’s definitive takeaway is that the interior forests of the Malay Peninsula, far from being botanically exhausted, continue to yield species of the first rank—most dramatically the indigenous Borassus, which overturns the assumption that the genus was confined to a single introduced species. The paper functions as both a taxonomic record and an implicit argument for sustained fieldwork in the less accessible forest tracts of Perak, Selangor, and Borneo, where collectors like Machado and Burn-Murdoch were proving that significant novelties still awaited discovery.

Context

• The primary material derives from the herbarium and living collections of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, supplemented by field collections from Perak, Selangor, Johore, Kelantan, Penang, Sarawak, and Siam; Ridley’s own collection numbers (e.g., Ridley 7064, 7265, 8482, 10171, 11017, 11424) indicate a systematic, long-term programme of botanical survey.
• The article contributes to the early systematic flora of the Malay Peninsula and represents the peak of Ridley’s output as a taxonomist of regional significance; several of the species described here remain valid today.

References