xv, 2 Merrill: Melodorum of Loureiro 129 



lacca, Burkill 2510; Perak, Scortechini 1946 (all these distributed 

 as Polyalthia aberrans Maing., flowering specimens) : Java, cult. 

 Hort. Bogor XI-A-U1-71 (four sheets, Polyalthia siamensis 

 Boerl., flowering specimens from the type plant), XI^A-63 (Po- 

 lyalthia affinis Teysm. & Binn., flowering and fruiting specimens) . 



As several detailed descriptions of this species, as well as no 

 less than four illustrations of it, with details of the flowers and 

 fruits, have been published, it would seem that a further de- 

 scription is unnecessary. The genus Melodorum Lour., as I 

 understand it, contains a single definitely known species, which 

 while well defined and characteristic as a species presents a 

 combination of characters which render it somewhat difficult to 

 separate Melodorum from several not closely allied genera. It is 

 clearly no Unona (that is, Desmos) ; and it is equally aberrant 

 in Polyalthia and in Popowia, the two other genera in which it 

 has been placed. I am personally of the opinion that Melodorum 

 as originally described by Loureiro and typified by Melodorum 

 fruticosum Lour, (not of modern authors) is a valid genus, 

 more closely allied to Popowia than to Polyalthia, and that it 

 belongs in the tribe Mitrephorae. Pierre in his critical discussion 

 of Unona mesneyi notes that Maingay described the inner petals 

 as imbricate in bud, but that he found them to be perfectly 

 valvate in Wallich's specimen. Both series of petals touch by 

 their thickened margins, and those of the inner series remain 

 in this position long after anthesis. I have seen no fresh 

 material of Melodorum fruticosum, but the figures given by 

 Pierre, Boerlage, and King present the outer series of petals as 

 more or less spreading in anthesis ; in all the herbarium specimens 

 examined by me none of the petals are spreading. The persistent 

 valvate position of the inner petals is a character by which the 

 genus can be readily distinguished from Polyalthia and all the 

 other genera in the tribe Unonae; while in the Mitrephorae it 

 is readily distinguished from Fissistigma Griff. (Melodorum 

 auct., non Lour.) by its globose buds and more or less spreading 

 ( ?) outer petals; from Popotvia Endl., which seems to be its true 

 alliance, it differs entirely not only in its fades, but also in its 

 larger, long-pedicelled flowers; in its outer petals, which are 

 much larger and entirely different from the sepals; and by the 

 inner petals being valvate by their much thickened margins but 

 not connivent. 



Melodorum arboreum Lour. = Unona sylvatica Dunal, 10 the 



9 F1. Cochinch. (1790) 351. 

 "Monog. Anon. (1817) 91. 



