Canthium. pentandria monogynia. 535 



Kanden kara. Rheed. Mai. v. 71. t. 36. 



Weber a tetrandra. Willd. spec. i. 1224. 



Teling. Balwsoo-kwra. 



This is one of the most common, scraggy, thorny bushes on 

 the coast ; every soil and situation suits it. Flowering time 

 the hot season ; the seeds ripen in September. 



Trunk scarcely any, but branches innumerable, the small- 

 er are regularly cross-armed, ami spreading. Thorns sim- 

 ple, opposite, above the axills, spreading, cross-armed, very 

 strono- and very sharp ; in luxuriant plants they are sometimes 

 three-fold. Leaves on the young shoots opposite, on the older 

 branchlets fascicled, short petioled, reflexed. ovate, entire, 

 smooth ; size various. Stipules connecting, subulate. Um- 

 bellets, or rather racemes opposite, below the thorns, small, 

 about the length of the leaves. Peduncles and pedicels smooth, 

 round. Flowers small, yellow. Calyx above, four-toothed; 

 teeth acute ; permanent. Corol one-petalled. Tube gibbous, 

 short ; mouth downy. Border four-parted ; segments ovate, 

 expanded. Filaments four, in the mouth of the corol. An- 

 thers ovate. Germ inferior, globular, two-celled, with one ovu- 

 lum in each attached to the axis above its middle. Style, ra- 

 ther lono-er than the tube of the corol. Stigma headed. Drupe 

 obcordate, laterally compressed a little with a hollow on each 

 side, size of a cherry, crowned with the remaining calyx, 

 fleshy, smooth, yellow, two-celled. Nuts two, one in each cell, 

 oblono-, one-celled. Embry oinverse, sub-cylindric, a little 

 curved, and furnished with a soft amygdaline perisperm. 



Obs. The bush makes excellent fence*. The ripe fruit is 

 eaten by the natives. The leaves are universally eaten in cur- 

 ries ; on that account the plant has the additional name kura 

 which means esculent. 



4. C. didymnm. G&rt. carp. iii. 94. I. 19G. 



Sub-arboreous, unarmed. Leaves oblong and oval. Cymes 

 axillary, sub-sessile. Floivers pentardrous. Style longer than 

 the cylindric tube of the corol, with a mitre-shaped stigma. 



H ii 4 



