356 EDIBLE FRUITS FROM THE MACLAY-COAST, NEW GUINEA, 



far less crowded, and the berries mucli less angular, also not 

 remarkably attenuated at the summit, M. uranoscopos, M. HilUi 

 and M. Maclayi should be cultivated side by side, so that their 

 respective characteristics could be carefully studied from the living 

 plants, I am informed, that the last mentioned produces suckers. 



M'usa calosperiiia is as yet only temporarily named, as merely 

 seeds have been obtained, so that even the generic position needs 

 yet to be confirmed. These seeds came from Moresby Island ; and 

 the seeds are also used as ornament by the natives on the eastern 

 and southern coast of New Guinea ; but the fruits are not eatable. 

 An only seed seen by me, had been taken from an ornamental 

 string, and thus had lost its albumen and embryo ; it is about half 

 an inch long and broad ; the testa is of bony hardness and com- 

 paratively thick ; at one extremity it opens into an ample cavity 

 which communicates by a seemingly natural narrow perforation, 

 with the still wider and not very high central cavity, into the 

 middle of which the cross-septum somewhat protrudes ; on the 

 other side of the central cavity a smaller sepai-ate hollow exist, 

 which is connected with a slight external excavation. It has been 

 deemed advisable to give at once some account of the remarkable 

 structure of this seed, in order that speedy attention may be drawn 

 to the desirability of tracing this perhaps not uncommon Papuan 

 plant to its primeval habitation, for obtaining thus full material 

 for specific elucidation also. 



{Leaves andjiowers not obtained). 



" Orlan^^ Pangium edule, (Reinwardt). "This fruit is suspended 

 in bags within forest localities till it becomes sour." Professor 

 Miquel avers, that this tree is wide spread over the Sunda Islands 

 and Moluccas, probably however through cultivation only ; it is 

 there known to the autochthones under various names, all however 

 dissimilar to the Papuan one ; the inner pulps separates in very 

 angular masses, each of which invests a seed ; the cotyledons are 

 more or less flexuous. Fruit not dissimilar to that of Hydnocarpus 

 heterophyllus. 



