228 Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 



acuminate or caudate-acuminate, the edges entire or (especially in old 

 leaves) tliickened and minutely undulate, the base narrowed or x-ounded ; 

 both surfaces glabrous ; main nerves 4 to 6 pairs, ascending, curved, 

 rather prominent and pale beneath in adult leaves. Panicles axillary, 

 on long peduncles, branching. Flowers numerous, crowded at the 

 extremities of the branchlets, 4-merous, '15 to "25 in. in diam. Sepals 

 broadly ovate, spreading, pubescent, minute. Petals much larger than 

 the sepals, ovate, concave, nerved, puberulous. Stamens 4 ; the filaments 

 pubescent in the male, villous in the female flower. Ovary deeply 

 4-lobed, puberulous ; the disc entire, woolly. Style single ; stigmas 4, 

 reflexed. Fruit of 1 to 3 sub-globular coriaceous drupes seated on the 

 enlarged disc, and surrounded by the enlarged coriaceous curved petals. 

 Benn. Plantae Javan. Rarior. 197. t. 41 ; Planch, in Hook. Lond. Journ. 

 Bot. V, 573 ; Hook. fil. Fl. Br, Ind. I, 520 ; Kurz for Flor. Burma, I. 

 201. P. nepalensis, Benn. in Wall. Cat. sub No. 8506, (Lith. Cat. p. 287) ; 

 PI. Jav. Rar. 201 ; Planch, in Hook. Journ. Bot. V, 673. P. andamanica, 

 Kurz Andam. Hep. App. IV ; Hook. fil. Fl. Br. Ind. I, 520 ; Brticea ? 

 Wall. Cat. 7499. B. dubia, Steud. ISTomencl. Wall. Cat. indeterminata, 

 No. 9037. 



Malacca, Perak, Andamans. Disteib. — Malayan Archipelago, sub- 

 Himalayan trachs, Assam, Khasia Hills and Burmah, in British India. 



I can find nothing to distinguish P. nepalensis Benn. and P. andama- 

 nica, Kurz from P. javauica, Blume. In fact Kurz himself reduced his 

 species P. andamanica to P. javanica ; and in his latest book (The Flora 

 of British Burmah), he does not give the name P. andamanica, which 

 was in fact originally published in a hastily prepared ofiicial report. 

 And, as for P. nepalensis, Benn. — its author declares in his original 

 description of it, that it differs from P. javanica, Bl., only by having 

 sometimes as many as seven leaflets, and in their being moi^e acuminate 

 than is usual in specimens from Java. 



3. Brucea, Mill. 



Bitter trees or shrubs. Leaves large, unequally pinnate. Flowers 

 in minute, numerous, very small cymes, collected into long narrow axil- 

 lary panicles. Calyx minute, 4-partite, imbricate. Petals 4, minute, 

 linear, imbricate. Disc 4-lobed. Stamens 4, inserted beneath the disc, 

 filaments naked. Ovary 4-lobed, or consisting of 4 entirely free car- 

 pels. Drupes 4, entirely free, ovoid, somewhat fleshy. Seed, solitarj^ 

 exalbuminous. — Disteib. Tropics of Old World and of Australia. Spe- 

 cies 6. 



1. Bedcea somatrana, Roxb. Fl. Ind. I., 449. A shrub 4 to 6 feet 

 high ; young branches rather stout, tawny-pubescent. Leaflets about 



470 



