Debregeasia.|  OXXIIIp. URTICACER (Rendle). 295 
13, DEBREGEASIA, Gaud. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii, 390, 
Flowers moneecious or dicecious in small dense capitate clusters. 
Male: Perianth 4-partite, more rarely 3- or 5-partite, segments ovate, 
valvate, bud depressed-globose. Stamens as many as the perianth- 
segments. Ovary rudiment more or less ellipsoid, glabrous or 
woolly at the base. Female: Perianth ventricose-tubular, ovoid 
or obovoid, contracted and minutely toothed at the mouth, becoming 
succulent in fruit. Ovary straight, enveloped by the perianth ; style 
absent or rarely short ; stigma penicillate ; ovule erect from the base. 
Achene enclosed in and partly adnate to the succulent perianth ; 
pericarp crustaceous. Seed conforming to the pericarp; testa mem- 
branous; albumen copious or scanty; cotyledons small, broad. 
—Shrubs. Leaves alternate, stalked, serrate, 3-nerved, upper face 
often rough, lower generally with a white or ashy tomentum ; stipules 
Jomed into a single axillary structure, 2-fid. Flowers in globose 
axillary clusters, which are sessile or arranged in sessile or stalked 
cymes ; bracts scarious, in the female minute; female receptacle 
somewhat thickened. 
Species about 12, in India, Malaya, and Eastern Asia, one in Abyssinia, 
Arabia and Afghanistan. 
1. D. salicifolia, Rendle. A large shrub, erect, branched ; branch- 
lets slender, erect or ascending, leafy and white tomentose above, 
glabrescent with warm red-brown cortex below. Leaves shortly 
stalked, stiffly membranous or subcoriaceous when dry, narrowly 
lanceolate, apex tapering acuminate, base obtuse, margin serrulate, 
3 to 5 or 6 in. long, $-1 in. wide, 3-nerved, the lateral basal nerves 
slender failing about the middle of the leaf and anastomosing with 
the delicate upper nerves, cross-unions regular, parallel, upper face 
sparsely hairy when young, soon becoming glabrous, scabrid, and 
often rugulose, lower face white-tomentose ; petiole {-} in. long, 
Slender, tomentose. Stipules glumaceous, brown, linear-lanceolate, 
2-fid at the apex, 3-4 lin: long, hairy on the two prominent nerves, 
Soon falling. Heads of flowers about the size of a pea, male, female, 
or sometimes androgynous, solitary or 2-4 in the leaf-axils, sessile or 
Shortly stalked. Male heads few-flowered, larger than the female ; 
perianth a little over 1 lin. long, campanulate below, divided about 
half-way down into 4 broadly ovate spreading segments, white- 
tomentose on the outside; stamens exceeding the perianth; ovary 
Trudiment blunt, glabrous. Female heads many-flowered ; flowers much 
smaller than the male, subtended by small brown scarious bracteoles, 
harrowly obovoid. Fruiting heads yellowish, globular, 2-3 lin. in 
diam., sometimes uniting in pairs ; berries about 4 lin. long, tipped 
with the dried remains of the stigma—D. bicolor, Wedd. in DC. 
Prodr. xvi, j. 235%; Boiss. Fl. Orient. iv. 1148; Deflers, Voy. 
