DECEMBER 23, 1911] EUPHORBIACEAE COLLECTED ON PALAWAN ISLAND 1305 
pure white on the outside, otherwise dingy; bark grayish, 
smooth or minutely checked, roughened with exerescences; 
twigs tough, greenish, suberect, soft, melleus, hirsute. Leaves 
horizontal or descending, submembranous, flat, paler green 
| beneath, quickly drying green, entire, the average blades 2.5 
em. long by 1 dm. wide above the middle, obovately oblong, 
apex obtusely rounded to acute, gradually narrowed to the 
bluntly rounded base, soft hirsute pubescent on both sides es- 
pecially beneath, not numerous, alternatingly crowded toward 
the distal end; stout midvein brown, quite eonspieuous on the 
upper side; lateral pairs about 15, ascendingly curved, the basal 
ones straighter and more ascending, yellowish green, the green 
cross bars evident from beneath; petiole extremely stout, 2 to 4 
em. long, subterete, similarly hairy. Inflorescence ascending 
from the leaf axils; the slender similarly pubescent stalk 1 to 2 
dm. long, flower bearing from above the middle; the larger or 
lower floral bracts lanceolate and 2 em. long, yellowish green 
and soft hairy, pedicels or stalks 1 cm. long; staminate flowers 
usually in small clusters, all more or less pendant; sepals imbricate, 
1 unequal, 5, united below the middle, obovately oblong, averaging 
k ; 1.5 mm. in length, the outer ones with few but long setae along 
the median region on the back above the middle, spreading in 
anthesis; petals free, as many as there are sepals, 2.25 mm. long, 
subequal, glabrous, deep purple even in the globose bud state, 
obovate, contracted toward the base, thickened or glandular on 
the upper side at the base, nerved, also imbricate; gynaphore 
short and thick, purple, terete, glabrous, centrally arising from a 
short cup shaped very dark purple glabrous rim; anthers 3, 
sessile, borne at the distal end of the columns, attached at the 
base on the inner side, apiculate, divided nearly to the base, 
creased and dehiscent along the dorsal median line, 0.5 to 0.75 
mm. long; capsule also pendant, flatly trigonous, 1.25 em. across, 
3-celled, 3-seeded, glabrous; seeds streaked or conspicuously 
mottled. 
1 Type specimen 12819, A. D. E. Elmer, Puerto Princesa 
(Mt. Pulgar), Palawan, March, 1911. 
This undershrub was discovered in rich humus covered soil 
of forests at 750 feet. Named after Mr. E. D. Merrill who had 
: partly worked it out from specimens collected by H. M. Curran 
è of the Forestry Bureau. 
