Materials for a Flora of the Malmjan Veninsnla. 459 



even in bud, under "l in. long. Bractcoles two, unequal, ovate, acute, 

 pubescent ; pedicel of flower very short. Sepals 5, ovate, blunt, concave, 

 erect, shortly ciliolate at the edges. Petals and stamens absent. Ovary 

 broadly ovoid, totnentose ; style thick, conical, glabrescent. Fruit uuknown. 

 Singapore : Ridley, No. 6342. 



The only specimens of this are in flower ; and, the ovaries having 

 been fertilised, the petals and stamens *(as is the case in other species of 

 Meliosnia) have fallen oS. The only specimens known are Mr, Ridley's. 

 They were collected in the little patch oE forest which forms an adjunct 

 to the Botanic Garden of Singapore, which is one of the few pieces 

 of the original vegetation of the island which has escaped the ravages 

 of axe and spade. In leaf this plant is not unlike M. lanceolafa, Bl., but 

 the nervation and pubescence of the leaflets are different. 



Note. — Besides the foregoing, there are in the Calcutta Herbarium specimens 

 from Singapore (Herb. Ridley, without a number) of a pinnabe-leaved Meliosma. 

 None of these are ia fruit, but there are plenty of flowers, and these closely resemble 

 the flowers of M. lanceolata, Bl. The leaflets of this plant are nai-rowly oblong, of 

 rather thinner texture than those of M. lanceolata, and their iipper surfaces are not 

 glabrous (except the pubescent midrib), and they are not at all ragaloae ; the under 

 aarfacea are densely covered with unequally long shining hairs. 



Nat. Ord. XXXVI, Anacardiaceae. 



Trees or shrubs usually with oleo-resinous often acrid juice. Leaves 

 alternate (opposite in Bouea) simple or compound. Flowers small, regu- 

 lar, unisexual, polygamous, sometimes hermaphrodite, usually in panicles, 

 the ultimate branchlets being cymose. Calyx 3-5-partite, sometimes 

 accrescent ("spathaceous in Gluta, calyptrate in Melanorrhoea.) Petals 

 3 to 5, alternate with the segments of the calyx, free, imbricate or 

 valvate in bud, sometimes accrescent, i-arely absent. Disc flat, cupular 

 or annular, entire or lobed, rarely obsolete. Stamens equal in number 

 to the petals, or fewer, or more numerous, often abortive, inserted beneath 

 the disc, rarely on it : filaments often subulate; the anthers 2-celled, 

 basi- or dorsi-fixed. Pistil in the male flower usually absent, in the 

 female solitary, or pistils 4 or 6 and apocarpous, or 2 to 5 and syncar- 

 poas : ovary mostly superior (half-inferior in Holigarna) the loculi with 

 a single ovule pendulous from the top of the cell or from its side, or 

 from an ascending funicle rising from the base : styles 1 to 5 and free, or 

 the stigma sub-sessile, or simple or lobed. Fruit superior (except in lloli- 

 garna and Drimycarpus) and drupaceous, with one cell and one seed, and 

 sometimes with accrescent sepals or petals ; or a false drupe with a 2- to 5- 

 celled stone covered by pulp. Seed exalbuminous : the embryo straight 

 or curved : cotyledons plano-convex, radicle short. — Distrib. chiefly 

 tropical : about 430 species in 55 genera. 



745 



