396 DECANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Melia. 



great beauty. Its flowers are like those of the i^7ac, and 

 are sweetly fragrant. 



5. M. superba. R. 



Leaves bi-tripinuate ; leaflets ovate-cordate, serrate, 

 acuminate, lucid. Drupe ovate ; nut perforated at both 

 ends. 



A native of Soonda, where Dr. Berry found it, a forest 

 tree of immense size. In the Botanic garden at Calcutta 

 where it has been raised from the seed, sent by Dr. B. it 

 has, in six years from the time the seed was sown, at- 

 tained the height of forty or fifty feet, with a most state- 

 ly trunk, of about four feet in circumference, at four feet 

 above ground. Flowering time February and March, 

 and tlie seed ripens in December and January. 



Trunk nearly straight. Bark dark brown, dotted with 

 small white specLs. Branches generally trichotomous, 

 their bark like that of the trunk. Young shoots mealy. 

 Leaiws alternate,in luxuriant young trees tripinnate, when 

 older generally bipinnate ; from two to four feet long, (in 

 M- rohusta they are only from twelve to eighteen inches 

 long). PiuncB from three to six pair, opposite. Pinnulce 

 ternate. Leaflets from three to seven pair to each pinna, 

 generally opposite, petiolated, cordate, and ovate-cordate, 

 crenate, smooth, acuminate ; from three to five inches 

 long. Petioles round, while young mealy. Panicles 

 axillary, and lateral, round the base of the present annu- 

 al shoots, large, ascending, very ramous, and of an ovate 

 form, while young mealy. Flowers numerous, small, of a 

 dull white, and offensive smell. Bractes small, lanceolate, 

 nearly caducous. Calyx five leaved ; leaflets ovate-lan- 

 ceolate, incurved, mealy. Petals linear, concave, recurv- 

 ed. Nectary subcylindric, raiher gibbous at the base, 

 ten-ribbed, hairy on the inside ; the ten teeth of its mouth 

 divided into three, four, or five short, subulate segments. 

 Germ five-celled, with two seeds in each, attached from 



