Flacourtia, DIOECIA POLYANDRIA, 833 
1, F. mermis, Roxb, 
Arboreous, unarmed, Leaves oblong, crenate-serrate, po- 
lished. Racemes axillary, short, Flowers hermaphrodite, 
Style five-cleft. 
Mal, Tomitomi. 
A native of the Moluccas, where the tree is cultivated for 
its edible fruit. It has lately been introduced into the Botanic 
garden, where the tree thrives well, and blossoms during the 
dry season. The fruit ripens towards the close of the rains, 
Trunk short, soon dividing into numerous branches which 
form a large, very dense head of great beauty, The dark 
smooth, brownish, and perfectly destitute of every thing like 
thorns or prickles, Leaves alternate, short-petioled, elliptic, 
smooth, of a shming green on both sides ; when they first ex~- 
pand, reddish, and then the tree is uncommonly gaudy, from 
three to six inches long, Petioles semi-cylindric, Stipules. 
none. Racemes axillary, longer than the petioles, few-flow- 
ered, .Pedicels clavate, jointed near the middle. Bractes 
ovate, caducous, . Calyx deeply four or five-parted; divi- 
sions reniform, shorter ‘than the stamens and pistil. Corol. 
none. Filaments about twenty, inserted on a fleshy nectari~ 
ferous ring, which surrounds the base of the germ, Anihers 
two-lobed. Germ ovate, five-celled, with two ovula in each, 
attached to the middle of the axis. Style five-cleft, spreading. 
Berry of the size and appearance of a red cherry, and like 
that fruit, very smooth. Seeds as far as ten, in five vertical 
pairs, much compressed, ovate, covered witha rough nuci- 
form integument. Perisperm conform to theseed. Embryo 
straight. Cotyledons ovate. Radicle oblong, pointing to 
the umbilicus, or pointed end of the seed, which is next to 
the middle of the axis of the fruit. 
_ The fruit is too sour to be eaten raw, but guaen very a 
tarts, The tree io-of a middle ciae, very ornamental, aude a 
Biro evergreen in Bengal. aod 
VOL, HI, oa 
