292 XLIX. MELASTOMACEZ. |. [Otanthera. ` 
The genus consists of very few species natives of the Indian Archipelago, one of whieh, : 
ihe same as the Australian one, differs slightly from the others in the fruit drier and more ` 
capsular, and was therefore distinguished by Blume under the name of Lachnopodium. 
; bracteata, Korth. Verh. Nat. Gesch. Bot. 235. ¢. 51. A shrub 
of several feet, the branches more or less covered with pale-coloured or rusty - 
hairs or bristles. Leaves petiolate, ovate or ovate-elliptical, mostly 3 to5 no 
i i lowers few, in short — 
icels with a few small 
or pink, 5 to 6 lines long, each with a bristle at the end. Ovary adnate to 
about half the calyx-tube, the convex summit very bristly. Fruit n rl 
bular, crowned by the scars of the calyx-lobes. Capsule apparently dry, 
placentas projecting far into the cells.—Naud. in A . Nat. ser. 3. 
354; Lachnopodium bracteatum, Blume, Mus. Bot. i. 56. 
Queensland. Dalrymple Creek, Rockingham Bay, Da/lachy. Also in Sumatra. 
Korthals figures the calyx-lobes rather broad ; I find them narrow, as 
both in the Sumatran and the Australian specimens. chnopodium rubro- j dee 
Mas. Bot. i. 56, taken up from the Melastoma rubro-limbatum, a plan figured ia 
Link and Otto, Ic. Pl. Sel. 89. t. 41, appears to be the same species. i 
z 3. MELASTOMA, Linn. 1 
y 6, deciduous 1 
s obcor 
date or obovate. Stamens twice as many as petals ; anther 
ing at the top ina single pore, very unequal, 5 larger, with the co ve? 
below into a long appendage incurved and 2-lobed or 2-point 
after the fall of the ealyx-lobes, the capsule or berry more or tre l 
pulpy and bursting irregularly. Seeds cochleate. e ot e 
gose or hairy. Leaves usually ovate, 3- or more-nervec. Flo wie" : 
solitary or few together in cymes, often large and showy; the calyx H 
covered with bristles or scales. e 3 
A considerable genus, extending over tropical „Asia and the Pacific islands. The ad 
Australian species is a common one in India and the Archipelago. 
1. M. malabathricum, Linn. Spec. Pl. 559, var. polyanthum. e 
of a few feet in height, more or less clothed with hairs or wen? 
rigid and scaleglike on the branches, rigid and strigose on the UPR’ 
the leaves, longer and softer on the under side, but someti 
and scale-like, or nearly all long and soft. Leaves petiolate, trt š 
cordate and 6 in. long, to oblong-lanceolate and 3 in. long, with 3 or ert 
besides a fine intramarginal one. Flowers usually about 5 to 11 1m 
almost sessile cymes. Bracts very deciduous, from large and b lines 
to small and narrow-lanceolate. Calyx-tube ovoid-globular, 2 GË 
