A Note on Podadenia Sapida. 



BY 



J. C. WILLIS. 



n^HE account of this endemic genus of the Euphorbiacese, 

 -L given in Trimen's Flora, Vol. IV., p. 62, suffers from lack 

 of material, and I take the opportunity to amplify it, having 

 received a large supply of fruiting material through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. W. Ferguson, of Ratganga estate, Ratnapura. 



Mr. Ferguson says (under date September 27, 1910) that 

 " it is common in the jungle belts on this estate up to 2,800 

 feet. Trimen's description is not good. The fruit he de- 

 scribes as indehiscent, but as you will see they are dehiscent. 

 The seeds, he says, are 2 or 1. I have seen 3 in all the fruits 

 I have examined. The leaf has a swelling at its junction with 

 the petiole, which makes me think it is unifoliate. The fruit 

 description as "fleshy" seems hardly correct, and the "large- 

 stalked glandular processes " seem very vague. 



" There is a mucilaginous excretion covering the fruit, which 

 stains the hands as if with gamboge. 



" I have tasted one of the fruits. It is not unpleasant, but 

 would have to be an acquired taste with most people. 



" I thought I knew all the jungle edible fruits, and when I 

 saw (Tamil) coolies eating these was rather puzzled. When I 

 asked them what they called them they gave the name of 

 rambutan* {cumbli musi palam), and when I asked a Sinhalese 

 carpenter he said he had seen them before in the Kandy 

 District ; but no one else seems to have known anything of 

 them. 



" I find I was wrong in describing it as a tree 30 feet high, 

 as I have seen them much higher since I wrote." 



* Really the name of Nepheliuin lappaceum. 

 Annals of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Peradeuiya, Vol. V., Part III., Dec, 1911, 



6(13)11 (28) 



