18 
Dr. Jack on the Malayan Species of Melastoma. 
or sixteen inches long. A dense circle of brown-coloured 
bristles surrounds the joints of the stem within the axils. 
Panicles terminal, large, red, the subdivisions quaternate ; 
bracts similarly quaternate and verticillate, ovate. Flowers 
pale flesh-coloured. Calyx oblong; limb obsoletely four- 
toothed. Petals four. Stamina eight, nearly equal; an- 
thers similar and equal, purple, furnished with two short 
yellow appendages at the base. Ovary connected with the 
calyx by eight septa. Style simple. Berries reddish-purple, 
four-celled, many-seeded. 
Oss. This is a very remarkable and splendid species, with 
uncommonly large deep-green leaves, and highly coloured 
panicles. | 
16. MELASTOMA RUBICUNDA. IV. J. 
M. octandra, floribus axillaribus dichotome cymosis rubescenti- 
pellucidis, calycis margine integro, foliis oblongo-ovatis 
triplinerviis glaberrimis. | 
Native of the forests of Singapore. 
A shrub with long branches and cinereous warted bark. Leaves 
opposite, short-petioled, oblong, ovate, acuminate, obtuse 
at the base, triple-nerved, very entire, very smooth, pale 
green and punctate beneath. Petioles short, thick. Cymes 
somewhat paniculate, axillary, dichotomous, divaricate ; 
peduncles and pedicels smooth and red. Calya semi-inferior, 
sub-globose, somewhat pellucid, and of a delicate red, fleshy, 
smooth, attached to the ovary by eight partitions ; margin 
entire and incumbent. Corolla white, almost diaphanous, 
four-petalled; petals oblong, reflexed. Stamina eight, erect. 
Anthers long, curved, beaked, bituberculate at the base, 
red, before expansion having their points lodged in the cells 
betwixt 
