916 ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY, 
country, and also in Ceylon, they are very abundant, and many of them most magnificent and 
showy plants. : es : : 
The species are either trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, with opposite, exstipulate, entire 
leaves; usually without pellucid dots and marked by three or more thick longitudinal nerves or 
ribs. The flowers are usually bi-sexual, regular, often panicled, rarely solitary, the panicles or 
cymes usually contracted. The most remarkable peculiarity of this order is the position of the 
stamens in wstivation. ‘The filaments are inserted near the orifice of the calyx, and the anthers 
are bent down into its tube, occupying the vacant space between it and the ovary, after the 
expansion of the flower they ascend. A somewhat similar arrangement is observable in Meme- 
cyleae with this difference, that the ovary is there altogetner inferior and the anthers fill the 
cup of the calyx. The relative position of the ovary in the two orders generally affords a good 
discriminating mark between them, but is not always to be depended on as some Melastomaceae 
resemble Memecylon in this respect. 
“ Calyx with 3-5 teeth or divisions, which are more or less deep, or are sometimes united 
and separated from the tube like a lid. Petals equal to a segment of the calyx, perigynous, 
twisted in wstivation. Stamens either equal in number to the petals and alternate with them, 
or usually twice as many, the alternate ones of a different shape and perhaps never with fertile 
pollen: filaments in estivation, bent downwards towards the bottom of the calyx: anthers long, 
2-celled, bursting usually by one or two terminal pores, rarely longitudinally. Ovarium with 
several cells, rarely completely combined with the tube of the calyx, ver rarely entirely free 
from it, usually cohering with it more or less by means of 3-10 longitudinal nerves, thus forming 
as many cases as the anthers which they contain during astivation: ovules indefinite : style I: 
stigma simple, entire, capitate or reduced to a mere point. Placenta in the axis. Fruit pluri- 
locular : either free and then capsular, valvate and loculicide ; or adherent, baccate (a balausta), 
nd indehiscent. Seeds numerous, minute. Albumen none. Embryo straight or curved: 
radicle pointing to the hilum: cotyledons equal or unequal.—Leaves opposite, undivided, not 
dotted, 3-9-nerved.” 
Arrinities. My acquaintance with this very extensive order being slight, and my means 
of extending it very limited, I refrain from attempting to offer any opinion of my own on this 
head, but that this article may not be, by so much, deficient I shall introduce the whole of the 
valuable remarks of Dr. Lindley on their affinities for the benefit of those of my readers who 
may me have an opportunity of consulting the original. 
> cipal ie co Ned i ap @ superior ovary, a structure which was at oné 
rder ; ly, i . ila, t 
leaves are sometimes not ribbed. and, finally, in the remarkable genus Sonerila, the 
__ The greatest affinity of Melastoma 
with Myrtaceae and their allies; f 
