80 NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
LASIANTHUS, Jacx—Mephitidia,D.C. Santia, W. ann A. 
Calyz, limb 4-7 cleft. Corolla 4-7 cleft: throat and limb usually hairy, Stamens 4-7 inserted near the 
throat : filaments short: anthers oblong, scarcely exserted. Ovary crowned witha fleshy disk, 2-7-celled 
with a single erect ovule in each: sfyle about the length of the corolla: stigma usually capitate, 2-7-lobed. 
Drupe globose, containing 2-7 nuts. Nuts usually rugose, or furrowed on the back. Seed erect: albumen 
fleshy, enclosing a cylindrical erect embryo. 
Shrubs or small trees. Young branches, petioles and costa of the under surface of the leaves, usually 
clothed with long matted, or rigid adpressed hairs. Stipules caducous, bearing aring of hairs or filiform 
bristle-like scales. Leaves short, petioled, usually elliptic, oblong, more or less acuminated at the apex, and 
tapering at the base; often hirsute on both sides, but generally on the costaand veins, Veins prominent, 
pinnate, running in curved lines towards the margin, the last pair forming, withthe costa, a 3-nerved termi- 
nation of the leaf; veinlets conspicuous, passing in nearly straight lines between the costa and veins, giving a 
culiar and unique character to the venation, Bracteas often large and numerous, copiously clothed with 
long matted hair, forming athick involucrum round the axillary sessile fascicles of flowers. Flowers always 
small in all the genuine species I have seen. Calye limb sometimes much produced, and parted to the base, 
. into subulate or lanceolate teeth; sometimes short and obtusely lobed, rarely truncated, and furnished with 
short, almost inconspicuous teeth. Cwvrolla small, tubular, lobes of the limb spreading, and, with the throat, 
generally hairy. Drupe usually succulent, generally blue when ripe. 
The hairs on all parts of the plant, especially where long and shaggy, are jointed, in some species almost 
approaching to moniliform, The leaves are said by Blume, to exhale a disagreeable odour: this I have not 
observed. In this definition of the genus, I have abbreviated the essential character, and extended the na- 
tural one, in the hope of giving it greater precision and strength. 
This genus was first established by the late Mr. William Jack, for the reception of some plants, natives of 
the Eastern Islands. For reasons which I cannot adopt, it was changed by DeCandolle to Mephitidia, I there- 
fore restore the original name, having fully stated my reasons for doing so ina paper published in the Calcutta 
Journal of Natural History. When preparing our Prodromus, we found specimens of the accompanying plant 
in my collection, and as it is somewhat different from the original species of the genus, we supposed formed the 
type of a new one, which we named Santia. That genas I also reduce, as not being sufficiently distinct from 
Jack’s, hence the above two synonyms. Before doing so, I availed myself of the ample opportunities I had, of 
examining our plant in all its varying forms and stages, as well as comparing it with several other species in 
my collection, two or three of which are natives of the Hills, abounding on the western slopes towards Sysparah. 
This genus is remarkable for its tendency to variation in the number of the parts of its flower. The calyx 
is from 4 to 7 lobed, so is the corolla, the stamens and styles vary in like manner from 3 to 7, but in habit, 
the agreement throughout the whole, is quite remarkable, and is most conspicuous in the variation of the leaves 
which is quite peculiar. In nearly all, the flowers are axillary and nearly sessile, forming double capitula in the 
axils, generally furnished with bracteas, in some very large, quite foliaceous ; in nearly all the lobes of the co- 
_rolla is densely clothed with short hairs, giving it a velvetty appearance, whence the generic name, in all the 
ovules are erect, a useful mark towards distinguishing them from some other genera, with pendulous ovules, 
and in nearly all the fruit is a blue berry, The leaves of some exhale a fetid odour, which suggested the name 
ephitidia. 
The genus includes about 40 known species, all natives of India and the Eastern Islands, and it seems 
probable there are many yet to bediscovered. Regarding their asthe nothing is yet known ; most of them 
are shrubs, 
LASIANTHUS VENULOSU (R. W. Santia venu- late, as fie as the tube of the ere corolla 4«5 
losa W. and A.) shrubby, pa stipules trian- cleft, throat and ob hairy : stam 4-5; style as 
gular : leaves coriaceous, short petioled, elliptic- long or often lon or tine the connie * : lebed : cells 
oblong, cuspidate or acuminate, glabrous above ; veins of the ovary equalling the lobes of the stigma ; a single 
prominent on both sides beneath sprinkled with hairs : erect ovule each 
cymes axillary, short peduncled, few (3-5) flowered : Saithealy io the woods about Ootacamund, and 
mall hairy : calyx 4-5 parted, divisions subu- generally distributed over the higher ranges of the 
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