396 POLYADELPHIA POLYANDRIA. Melaleuca, 
Flowers tern, sessile, small, white, inodorous. Calyx urceo- 
late, semi-supera, sericeous; margins of five semilunar deci- 
duous segments. Petioles five, orbicular, short-clawed, white, 
much longer than the segments of the calyx. Filaments from 
thirty to forty, united into five portions at the base, three or 
four times longer than the petals, and with them inserted into 
the large, villous, five-lobed rim of the calyx, alternate with 
its segments. Anthers ovate-cordate, with a yellow gland on 
the apex. Germ ovate, with the lower half united to the calyx, 
three-celled, with numerous ovula in each attached to an ele- 
vated receptacle in the inner and lower angle of each cell. 
Style rather longer than the stamina. Stigma obscurely 
three-lobed. Capsules completely enveloped in the thick, 
fleshy, gibbous, permanent calyx, three-lobed, three-celled, 
 three-valved ; valves thin, hard, and elastic, opening from the 
apex. Partitions contrary. Receptacles triangular, thin, flat, 
lodged in the inner and lower angle of the cell. Seeds nu- 
merous, angularly wedge-shaped, 
It is readily cultivated both by the root and seed; when 
by the root, slender pieces thereof cut into little bits, and laid 
horizontally in the earth, during the rainy season, soon pro- 
duce plants. 
From the leaves is distilled the beautiful, green, aromatic, 
camphorate, essential oil called by the Malays at Amboyna, 
where it is chiefly made, Cajuputi, from Cajuputi one of the 
Malay names of the tree, 
_ When this tree was received into the Botanic garden, and 
ie the first five or six years afterwards, I was inclined to 
; think it Arbor alba major, Rumph Amb. ii, t. 16, on account 
of its very rapid growth during that period ; as well as be- 
cause it was then very generally understood, that the essential 
oil Cajuputi was obtained from that tree, But for these last six 
or seven years, the growth (of several trees) has been so slow, 
though in perfect health, flowering and ripening abundance 
of fertile seed, at all seasons of the year, as to induce me to 
waver in my former opinion, and become rather inclined to 
‘alas Scot omamathapemgggs = 
