Myrsine.] LXXIX. MYRSINEEZ (BAKER). 493 
Also Arabia. This seems to me distinct from the common Asiatic M. indica, A. DC. 
by its much more compound infloresence and shorter pedicels, but I should refer here 
as a variety with pilose branchlets and other parts, the Natal M. rufescens, A. DC. 
2. MYRSINE, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 642. 
Flowers polygamous. Calyx persistent, minute, entirely free from 
the ovary, with generally 5, rarely 4, deltoid imbricate teeth. Corolla 
rotate, with as many segments as the calyx and a very short tube. 
Stamens inserted at the throat of the corolla tube, as many as the im- 
bricate segments and opposite to them; filament 0 or very short ; 
anther lanceolate, cuspidate. Ovary globose ; style short, cylindrical ; 
stigma capitate; ovules few. Fruit small, globose, dry or fleshy, 
l-seeded. Seed the same shape as the fruit, sessile, with abundant 
horny sometimes slightly ruminate albumen.—Erect or procumbent 
trees or shrubs, with branchlets usually stout, the mostly entire leaves 
crowded near their tips and the copious small whitish flowers sessile 
or pedicellate in umbels from the branchlets below the leafy part. 
A genus of eighty species, spread round the world principally in the Tropical 
Zone; two out of the four Tropical African species are abundant at the Cape. 
Leaves small, toothed, not crowded towards the end of the ; 
branchlets, with the flowers in their axils. . . . . 1. M. africana. 
ves comparatively large, entire, crowded towards the 
end of the branchlets, with the flowers below them. ; ; 
Stamens exserted. Leaves obovate-oblong . . . . . « 2. AM. querimbensis. 
Stamens included. Leaves oblong or oblanceolate-oblong. 
Pedicels as long as the flower or fruit 2... OM. melanophleos. 
Pedicels twice as long as the flower or fruit. . . - . 4. M. simensis. 
oo 
1. M. africana, Linn.; A. DO. Prod. viii. 93. A low very 
much branched shrub, with very slender pilose or glabrous branchlets, 
with the abundant leaves spaced all down them. Leaves subsessile, 
obovate or oblong, 4—3 in. long, obtuse or acute, finely serrated, cuneate 
at the base, subcoriaceous, green and glabrous on both sides or a little 
pubescent beneath, with only the midrib prominently raised. Flowers in 
Copious globose sessile clusters in the axils of the leaves, as many as 
10 or 12 to a cluster. Calyx very minute, with a short turbinate tube 
and usually 5, rarely 4, orbicular much imbricated segments. Corolla 
24 ™M. across when expanded; tube very short; segments oblong. 
ens very large for the size of the flower; anthers oblong, Cre 
ate, much exserted; filaments very short. Fruit glabrous, glo _ 
bright brown, 4 in. diameter ; style short, cylindrical ; stigma minute, 
capitate, entire. . 
_ Wile Land. Mountains of Abyssinia, Schimper! Plowden! Roth! Quartin- 
Dillon and Petit ! &e. 
the Cape and Azores. 
2: M. querimbensis, Klotzsch in Peters Mossamb. Bot. i. 185. 
A shrub or small tree, glabrous except a little ferruginous = grey heat 
mentum on the young branchlets. Leaves crowded towards * © top 
of the branchlets ; petiole 4? in., bordered by a narrow wing ; 
