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IX. On the Fruit of Melocanna bambusoides, Trin., an Endospermless, Viviparous 
Genus of Bambuseæ. By Dr. Orro Starr, F.L.S. 
(Plates 45-47,) - 
Read 20th March, 1902. 
“ Die ganze Lebensweise der Gewüchse beruht auf Anpassungsverhültnissen, und die 
morphologische Ausbildung ihrer Organe wird erst unter dem Gesichtspunkte der 
Anpassung verstündlich."—W rzsxR, Biologie der Pflanzen, p. 9. 
AMONG the Bambusez there are three genera the fruits of which are described as 
large or very large caryopses, either with a coriaceous pericarp and a fleshy seed, or with 
a very thick, fleshy pericarp. Some of these fruits have been figured, and however 
meagre the figures may be in details, they suggest at once an unusual deviation from the 
typical structure of the grass fruit. The genera are Melocanna, Melocalamus, and 
Ochlandra, and I will summarize briefly the little we know about the structure of their 
fruits before dealing with the special subject of this paper. 
Melocanna is supposed to comprise two species, like Jelocalamus natives of Eastern 
Bengal and Burma. I shall have to say more about the number of species later on, and 
will confine my remarks in this place to the fruit of what is generally known as M. bam- 
busoides, Trin. "This fruit was first described and figured by Roxburgh in his ‘ Plant:e 
Coromandeliana, iii. pp. 37, 38, tab. 243, in 1819, as the fruit of a new species of Bambusa, 
viz. B. baccifera. According to the diagnosis, it is “a very large, pendulous, pyramidal, 
one-seeded berry," and according to the description, “a very large, hard, fleshy, conical, 
smooth, taper, curved, pointed fruit with a single large oval seed." The figure of the 
fruit in the plate quoted above is very well done, but the longitudinal section, which is 
also shown, does not pass through the axis of the embryo, and gives therefore an inade- 
quate idea of the structure of the seed, which was no doubt the reason why it has so long 
remained unknown. Trinius recognizing a new genus in Roxburgh's Bambusa baccifera, 
proposed (in Sprengel, Neue Entdeck. ii. (1821) p. 43), two years after the publication 
of the * Plantze Coromandeliane,’ the name JMelocanna for it, and M. bambusoides for the 
species. Not having seen specimens, he ventured to explain the structure of the fruit 
by assuming that the fleshy case containing the seed was formed by the thickening and 
fusion of the lodicules, ** ungefähr wie sich die Blumenschuppen von Tavus, Juniperus 
und ähnlichen zur Beere bilden." This explanation of the very singular fruit was sug- 
gested to Trinius, as he himself says, by the three swellings at the base of the fruit 
shown in Roxburgh’s figure. All later references to Melocanna up to the publication of 
Munro's ** Monograph of the Bambusez ” (in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxvi, 1868) are based on 
Roxburgh's description, adding no fresh information on the subject. Nor did Munro 
himself see specimens of the fruit of Jelocanna, but he quotes a few lines from a 
SECOND SERIES.—BOTANY, VOL. VI. 3M 
