354 FURTHER NOTES OX EBEXACE.T:. 



foliosi rugulosi. Folia rigide coriacea 1-2 poll, longa t^- I poll, lata, 

 sed ea ramulorum infernorum et arborum juvenilium ^-2 poll, longa 

 t'g-^ poll, lata, supra intense viridia la^te reticulata, infra pallide viridia 

 Ifevia nervo rubescente robusto apice attenuato venisque reticulatis 

 gracillimis notata, petiolo Vei poUicari prsedita. ? Fructus prinium 

 ellipsoideus solidus demura globosus carnosus 11-^ poUicaris laevis 

 viridis came viscoso ; loculis monospermis 12 vel paucioribus. Calyx 

 fructifer glaber ^-f poll, altus f-l| poll. diam. ; tubo crasso anipliato- 

 cupulari; lobulis inoequalibus non reflexis margine rubescente. Semina 

 oblonga leviter compressa |-poll. longa |-polllata. Embryo ^-poUicaris, 

 cotyledonibus ^ij-pollicaribus. Albumen corneum albidum aequabile. 

 riores sire masculi seu feminei adhuc ignoti. 

 Species nova in generis sectione " Ebenus " inter D. melanidam, 

 Poir. et D. nodosum, Poir. ponenda. [Tab. 172, excl. lit. «•.] 



This species is remarkable for its heterophyllous condition : young 

 plants of it and the lower branches of adult trees bear narrow leaves, 

 while the leaves of all other parts, including the flowering branches, 

 are of a much broader and larger character. I am acquainted with no 

 parallel to this diversity of foliage in the case of any other species 

 throughout the order; nevertheless Wallich in his Burmese catalogue, 

 n. 599, and in his List, n. 4138, gave the name oi Biospyros hetero- 

 phylla to some specimens from Ava, which he took for a new species, 

 but which actually belong to Roxburgh's widely dispersed species 

 J), montana. Wallich's type-specimens, however, fail to exhibit any 

 such difference of shape amongst their leaves as to justify the name 

 which he attached to them. Dr. I. B. Balfour tells me that the trunk 

 of our new species seems never much to exceed eight inches in 

 diameter, and that when this size is reached the dark wood soon 

 begins to decay ; the tree, therefore, appears to be short-lived. 



Since the flowers of this species are at present unknown, and since 

 very few of the species belonging to this section of the genus have 

 been figured in any publication, I have added in a corner of the plate, 

 distinguished however by the letter a, a male flower of the allied 

 species D. mela7iida, Poir. 



The affinity is very close to D. melanida^ Poir., and the general 

 foliage, so far as applies to the broader leaves, much resembles some 

 states of this species, but the fruiting calyx lies close to the lower 

 part of the fruit, and is without the reflexed or spreading and crisped 

 lobes which in D. melanida are employed to distinguish it from D. 

 nodosa, Poir. It difi'ers from D. nodosa by the usually shorter petioles 

 as well as by the heterophyllous peculiarity. 



Some specimens from Congo, collected by Christian Smith in the 

 year 1816, and belonging to Diospyros Loiireiriana, G. Don, as 

 described on pages 194-195 of the Monograph, n. 59, have been lately 

 brought to their proper place in our herbaria ; they afford additional 

 material for the knowledge of this species, and in company with the 

 other forms which occur in West Tropical Africa deserve, by tolerably 

 good characters founded on the fruiting calyx, to be set up as a well- 

 marked variety. Notwithstanding the distinction just alluded to, 

 they much resemble the forms from East Tropical Africa in many of 

 their more constant characters as well as in more variable ones, and 

 therefore I tliink it best to deal with the species as composed of the 



