396 POLYADELPHiA POLYANDRiA. Melaleuca. 



Flowers tern, sessile, small, white, inodorous. Calyx iirceo- 

 late, se'mi-supera, sericeous; margins of five semilunar deci- 

 duous segments. Petioles five, orbicular, short-clawed, white, 

 much longer than the segments of the calyx. Filaments i'rom 

 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 eel!. Seeds nu- 

 merous, angularly wedge-shaped. 



It is readily cultivated both by the root and seed ; when 

 bv 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, 

 campliorate, essential oil called by the Malays at Amboyna, 

 where it is chiefly made, Cajupiiti, from Cajupnti one of the 

 Malay names of the tree. 



When this tree was received into the Botanic garden, and 

 for the first five or six years afterwards, I was inclined to 

 think it Arbor alha 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 Cajupnti 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 



