394 XXXII. OLACiNEiE. [Cansjera, 



erect or suspended from a sliort placenta in the centre of tlie minute cavity. 

 Drupe with a thin sarcocarp. Seed erect; embiyo small or sometimes elon- 

 gated. — Weak or climbing shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire. Tiowers small, 

 in short axillary spikes. 



Besides the Australian species, which is also in New Ireland, the genus comprises 2 or 

 perhaps 3 from tropical Asia, 



1. C. leptostachya, BentL in Hook, Loud Joum, ii. 23L A climbing 

 shrub, "-labrous or the vounfi: shoots vei-v minutely tomcntose. Leaves ovate- 

 lanceolate, long-acuminate, 2 to 3 in. long, membranous, glabrous, opi&es i 

 or 2 togetlier in the axils, rarely exceeding | in. Flowers in the young bud 

 strigose- pubescent, sessile in the axils of narrow minute bracts which soon 

 fall oti', Avhen fully open about 1 line long, nearly globular and glabrous, the 

 lobes very short and spreading. Filaments slender, but shoi'ter than the pe- 

 rianth, Hypogynous scales short, broad, entire or rarely 34oothed. Fruit 

 not seen, — Aleisn. in DC. Prod. xiv. 519. 



Queensland. Cape York and islands off the N.E. coast, A. Ciinnhigham^ WGillivraij, 

 The species is also in New Ireland, The flowers are about half the size of those of the com- 

 mon 0. Rheedii, Gmel., and I have not succeeded in detaching the calyx from the corolla, as 

 I have readily done in Malacca specimens of C. Rheedii or of an allied species. 



4. OPILIA, Roxb. 



Calyx minute, 5- or rarely 4-tootlied. Petals 5, rarely 4, liypogynous, 

 valvate in the bud. Stamens as many, alternating with the petals, free; fil^" 

 mcuts filiform ; anthers ovate. Disk of 5, rarely 4 scales, alternating with 

 the stamens. Ovary 1-celled, tapering into a short thick truncate style; 

 ovule solitary, suspended from a central filiform placenta very early adnate to 

 it. Drupe with a thin sarcocarp and crustaceous endocarp. Seed spuriously 

 erect; embryo linear, short, or nearly as long as the albumen.— Shrubs or 

 small trees, sometimes climbing. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers in axil- 

 laiy racemes; pedicels 3 together in the axils of peltate bracts, which are im- 

 bricate at an early stage but fall off before the flowers expand. 



A genus of 2 or perhaps 3 species, natives of tropical Asia and Africa, the Australian 

 species one of the widest dispersed, 



1. O. ameutacea, Roxb. PL Carom, ii. 31, t. 158. A scrambling half- 

 climbing shrub or small weak tree, glabrous, or the young leaves and shoots, 

 minutely tomentose-pubescent. Leaves petiolate, oVate, ovate-lanceolate, or 

 almost oblong, acute or acvnninate, 2 to 3 or even 4 in. long, or rarely shorter 

 and very obtuse, entire, thinly coriaceous, the veins usually prominent though 

 fine. Eacemes before flowering resembling little cylindrical cones of ^ in., 

 the peltate imbricate but almost squarrose bracts alone visible, wlien in flower 

 shmder, abotit 1 in. long, without bracts. Flowers very small, on filiforni 

 pedicels of about I line. Petals about | line long, very deciduous. Drupe 

 ovoid or globular, ^ to f in, long. Embryo linear, nearly as long as the al- 

 bumen.— Wight, Illustr. t. 40 ; O^javanica, Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. i. part i. 7S4. 



N. Australia. York Sound, N.W, coast, A, Cunningham; Victoria river, Bpioe, P- 

 Mueller; Port Essington, Armstrong; Poiut Pearce, F. Mueller. Also in the Indian 

 Peninsula, irr Ceylon and in Java. 0. peniitdis, Blume, Mus, Bot i. 246, from New 

 Guinea, is also probably, as he himself suggests, the same species. The fruit is on some 



