BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS. 43 



Melastomace.^. — Another of the remarkable and common 

 members of the flora of the Malayan Peninsula is this order. 

 They are plants of warm climates, few extending into the sub- 

 tropical regions. Generally they may be distinguished by their 

 remarkable opposite leaves, which have five to seven deeply 

 impressed curved longitudinal veins, and with long beaks to the 

 anthers. The prominence of the lateral ribs in the leaves gives 

 these plants some resemblance to species of MvRTACEiE ; but with 

 a few exceptions, the leaves of the Melastomas are without 

 transparent oil-glands. 



Out of 134 genera in the order, 29 are found in the Malay 

 region ; the rest belong principally to South America, excepting a few 

 in Africa and Polynesia. The order is divided into three sub-orders, 

 namely, MELASTOMEiE, AsTRONiEiE, and Memecyle^. The first has 

 no less than twelve tribes, the first of which (Microlicieee) is almost 

 confined to America; the second (Osbeckieae) has 29 genera of which 

 three only, Osheckia, Otanthera and Melastoma, are represented in 

 the Malay Peninsula, but these rather extensively. The Rhexieae 

 and Merianiese with ten genera are American ; the Oxysporeae 

 with ten genera is scattered over a large area between Madagascar 

 and Japan; the tribe Sonerileae with 13 genera has representa- 

 tives in Asia, Africa and America, and throughout a large area. 

 The tribe Medinillese with eleven genera has nine of them 

 represented in the Malay Peninsula and one of them (Medinilla) 

 with many species. The Miconiese with 30 genera belongs almost 

 exclusively to tropical America, and so does the next tribe, 

 Blakese. The other two sub-orders have only six genera. The 

 AsTRONiEiE with four genera is almost exclusively Malayan with the 

 exception of a few species in the Pacific region. The last sub- 

 order, Memecyle.e, has only two genera, both of a decidedly 

 aberrant type. One, Mouriria^ has thirty species, all American ; 

 the other, Memecylon, with a hundred species, in Asia, Australia, 

 the Pacific Islands, Ceylon and Africa, but all within the tropics. 



The order is closely connected with that of the Myrtles, which, 

 as most readers are aware, consists of trees and shrubs usually 



