Mesua. POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 605 
sub-inferior, Capsule one-celled, two-valved. Seeds from 
one to four. Embryo erect, without perisperm. 
il é 
M. ferrea. Willd. 3. 843. 
Leaves lanceolate. 
Nagacesara, Nagkesura, Sunscrit names. See Asiat. 
Res. 4. 295." ; 
Beng. Nagsara or Nagkesur. 
This most elegant tree is only, so far as I can learn, 
found in gardens in Bengal. I never saw it on the Coro- 
mandel coast. Flowering time the peginnie. pf the warm 
season. 
Trunk straight, and beautifully slender in Srtspereiod to 
its height ; bark smooth, dark ash-coloured. Leaves op- 
posite, short-petioled, lanceolate, entire, veinless, above 
smooth, and shining ; underneath whitish, with a subtile 
dust, which may be rubbed off, from three to six inches 
long, and one or alittle more broad. Flowers terminal, 
rarely axillary, solitary, or in pairs, short-peduncled, 
large, delightfully fragrant, petals pure white, with a large 
globe of bright gold-coloured anthers in the centre. Bractes 
none. Calyx four-leaved ; leaflets orbicular, concave, the 
inner pair somewhat large, and with membranaceous mar- 
gins. Petalsfour, expanding, nearly obcordate, curled ; 
margins often torn, and forcibly bent inward from their 
situation in the strong calyx before expansion. Filaments 
numerous, several hundreds, about one-fourth part of the 
length of the petals, filiform, slightly united at the base, — 
unto a fleshy ring. Anthers linear.* Germ superior, ovate, 
conic, two-celled, with two ovulain each attached to the 
* The stamens are generally permanent and as the capsule en 
larges, the ring which they formed round the base of the germ, 
bursts into several portions, which gives them the appearance of be- 
ing polyadelphous. 
“Tem informed that the Grandes of Ava, stuff te pillows with 
the dried anthers of this plant, on account of their fragra 
