246 USEFUL PLANTS OF QUAM. 
strung into rosaries and, according to Padre Blanco, yield a nutritious flour, which 
is fed to convalescents. In Japan they are pounded in a mortar and cleaned and 
used as meal and mochi. An infusion of the parched and ground grains, called 
“‘kosen’’ by the Japanese, is used instead of tea. 
REFERENCES: 
Coie lacryma-jobi L. Sp. Pl. 2: 972. 1753. 
Colales or Kulalis (Guam). See Adenanthera pavonina, 
Colales (Kulalis) halom-tano (Guam). See Abrus abrus. 
Col6 or Kol6 (Philippines). See Artocarpus communis. 
Colocasia antiquorum. See Caladiwn colocasia, 
Colubrina asiatica. 
Family Rhamnaceae. 
LocaL NAMES.—Gas6sd (Guam); Kabatiti, Uatitik (Philippines); Fiséa (Samoa); 
Vuso levu (Fiji: “much-foam’’); Tutu (Tahiti). 
A glabrous shrub with alternate leaves and axillary clustersof small greenish flow- 
ers having a fleshy disk in the calyx tube, suggesting the genus Euonymus or Cean- 
othus. Leaves 5 em. long by 2.5 em. wide, ovate, subacuminate, crenate-serrate, 
glabrous, membranous, 3-nerved at the base, the midrib pinnately branched; flowers 
growing in very short axillary cymes; calyx 5-parted, tube hemispherical; petals 5, 
clawed, springing from the margin of the disk, hooded; stamens 5; disk fleshy, 
filling the calyx tube; ovary sunk in the disk and confluent with it, 3-celled, the cells 
1-seeded, tardily dehiscent. 
This plant is widely spread in Polynesia and is found in India, Ceylon, Java, Bor- 
neo, New Guinea, Australia, and southwest Africa. In Samoa and inFiji the leaves 
are used for washing. They form a lather in water like soap. The vernacular 
name in Fiji signifies ‘much lather’? or “big foam.’? The special use to which it 
is devoted in Samoa is the cleansing and bleaching of the white shaggy mats which 
the natives make of the fiber of an urticaceous plant, Cypholophus macrocephalus. 
The natives of Guam do not make use of it except for medicine, nor is it included by 
Watt in his list of the useful plants of India. 
REFERENCES: 
Colubrina asiatica (L.) Brongn. Ann. Se. Nat. I. 10: 369. 1827. 
Ceanothus asiaticus L. Sp. Pl. 1: 196. 1753. 
Combretaceae. MYROBALAN FAMILY. 
This family is represented in Guam by the Malabar almond ( Terminatia catappa) 
and the red-flowered mangrove (Lumnitzera littorea). 
Commelinaceae. 
To this family belong Commelina benghalensis and Commelina nudiflora, creeping 
plants with small 3-petaled blue flowers from spathe-like b racts, and Zyyomenes cris- 
fata, with scorpioid cymes of blue flowers inclosed in large faleate, imbricating bracts. 
Commelina benghalensis. DrewrLowerR. DayFLOWER. 
Family Commelinaceae. 
Loca Names.—Anagiélide azul (Spanish ); Aligbafigon (Philippines). 
A pubescent plant with stems 60 to 90 em. long, dichotomously branched from the 
base upward, creeping and rooting below; leaves short-petioled, 2.5 to 7.5 em. by 
I to 3.5 em., ovate or oblong, obtuse, pubescent or villous on both surfaces, unequal 
at base, cordate, rounded, or cuneate, the veins subparallel, 7 to 11 pairs; inflores- 
cence inclosed in a spathe; spathes 1 to 3 together, short-peduncled, funnel-shaped 
or top-shaped, auricled on one side, pubescent or hirsute; upper cyme branched, 
2 or 3-flowered, lower 1 or 2-flowered or without flowers; sepals 3, small, oblong, 
“Flora de Filipinas, 689, 1837. 
» Agriculture Society of Japan, Useful Plants of Japan, p. 5. 1895. 
