list of figures - Terry Sunderland

Calamus. Hence, de Beauvois has the distinction of providing the first description of a
species of African rattan: Calamus secundiflorus.
Along with other botanical specimens, further collections of rattan, particularly from
the Niger Delta by Barter (1857-1859) and later from the major estuarine areas and
coastal forests of Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cameroon and Gabon by Mann (1859-1863)
were made (Keay, 1954). These collections provided the basis for the first
comprehensive treatment of the palms of Africa by Mann and Wendland in 1864.
Their paper provided the first published treatise of these new discoveries and
described eight species of rattan, seven of which were described for the first time. In
recognition of the morphological uniqueness of the African rattan taxa, Mann and
Wendland described four main rattan sub-genera of the genus Calamus, under which,
aside from C. deërratus G. Mann & H. Wendl. (or “true” Calamus as they termed it)
to which all of the remaining African rattan taxa were then consigned and the
subgenera, Ancistrophyllum, Laccosperma, Oncocalamus and Eremospatha were
described for the first time.
The first published recognition of the rattans endemic to Africa to generic rank was by
Drude (1877) who published the first valid generic use of Laccosperma in 1877. This
was immediately followed by Wendland who, in Kerchove’s Les Palmiers (1878),
also elevated the other sub-generic taxa he and Mann described in 1864, Eremospatha
and Oncocalamus, to generic rank. It is important to note that in this publication
Wendland continued to recognise Laccosperma and Ancistrophyllum as distinct taxa.
Bentham and Hooker, in their Genera Plantarum (1883) provided further descriptions
of the three African genera, but included Laccosperma as a subgenus of
Ancistrophyllum. The use of this latter name persisted until Dransfield (1982), in
recognition of Drude’s earlier (1877) publication and with reference to Kuntze’s
(1891) subsequent observations regarding Laccosperma & Ancistrophyllum 3 gave
priority to the name Laccosperma, with Ancistrophyllum being reduced to synonymy 4 .
2 Although there is some confusion regarding the publication of the first volume, the evidence given by
Merrill (1936) is enough to suggest that 1805 is the correct year of publication and not 1804 as
published on the frontispiece of Volume 1.
3 See Dransfield, 1982.
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