at pains to procure both sexes have not appreciated how 
attractive the female plant may be when in fruit. The 
plant is interesting as being that on which Linnaeus 
based the genus Myrsine; it is further interesting in 
having a geographical range much wider than is usual in 
the order Myrsinaceav. The original introduction to this 
country was from the Cape of Good Hope, and samples 
from that region were in cultivation at Hampton Court 
in 1691; to Cape specimens also the species owes its 
name WM. africana. Thence, however, it extends through 
tropical Africa to Afghanistan and Northern India. A 
figure based on a specimen from this region has been 
given in the Flora Simlensis of Sir Henry Collett. It 
occurs again in China whence it has been recently 
re-introduced; most if not all the plants in modern 
collections are of Chinese origin. The material from . 
which our plate was prepared was obtained in May, 1916, 
from the garden at Nymans, Handcross, Sussex, which 
contains one of the finest and most comprehensive 
collections of trees and shrubs in Britain, formed by the 
late Mr. L. Messel, and carefully maintained by his 
daughter. At Nymans two plants of M. africana of 
different sexes grow close together; this has resulted in 
the production of berries, hitherto a very rare event in 
this country. This, however, is not the first occasion 
on which J/. africana has fruited in England; it did so 
at Abbotsbury in 1893 and again in 1898, as specimens 
communicated to Kew in these years testify. 
Description.— Shrub, dioecious, 24-3} ft. high; twigs finely puberulous or 
nearly glabrous, brown. Leaves alternate, coriaceous, glabrous; petioles very 
short, blade 3-1 in. long, }—1 in. wide, lanceolate, obovate or elliptic, obtuse or 
acute, apiculate, base usually cuneate, margin sparsely toothed towards the 
apex, dark green and polished above, paler beneath. Flowers 1-sexual, in 
axillary clusters of 2-5; pedicels very short, glabrous. Calyx 5-lobed, pale’ 
brown, dotted, male 1, in. long, female rather smaller; lobes ovate or oblong, 
obtuse or acute, finely glandular-ciliate or glabrous. Corolla ;; in. long, 
campanulate, 4—5-lobed, pale brown, dotted; lobes in the male wide ovate, in 
the female narrow ovate, acute, glandular-ciliate. Stamens 4-5, in the male 
twice as long as the corolla, the violet-purple anthers }, in. long; in the female 
not longer than the corolla and abortive. Ovary absent from the male ; in the 
female ovoid, narrowed into the style; stigma very large, discoid, distinctly 
lobed. Berry globose, glabrous, shining, violet-purple. 
Tas. 8712.—Fig. 1, leaf; 2, flower; 3, calyx in section, showin he istil ; 
4, corolla, laid open :—all enlarged. . = . : 
