462 Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, 



1. BUCHANANIA, Roxb. 



Trees. Leaves alternate, petioled, simple, quite entire. Panicles 

 terminal and axillary, crowded. Flowers small, white, hermaphrodite. 

 Calyx short, 3-5-tootlied or -lobed, persistent, imbi-icate. Petals 4-5, 

 oblong, recurved, imbricate. Disc orbicular, 5-lobed. Stamens 8-10, 

 free, inserted at the base of the disc. Carpels 6-6, free, seated in the 

 cavity of the disc, one fertile, the rest imperfect ; style short, stigma 

 truncate ; ovule 1, pendulous from a basal funicle. Drupe small, flesh 

 scanty ; stone crustaceous or bony, 2-valved. Seed gibbous, acute at 

 one end; cotyledons thick; radicle superior. — Distrib. A tropical 

 Asiatic, Australian and Polynesian genus ; species about 25. 



Anthers not sagittate at the base ... ... 1. B. platyneura. 



Anthers sagittate at the base. 



Leaves always sharply acuminate at the apex, 

 the lower surface of the midrib pubescent ; 

 panicles pubescent ... ... ,.. 2. B. sessilifolia. 



Leaves rounded or obtuse at the apex, some- 

 times shortly and bluntly acuminate, every- 

 where glabrous : panicle glabrous ... ... S. B, florida. 



1. BucHANANiA PLATTNEDKA, Kurz in Joum. As. Soc. Bengal XLV 

 (1876), pt. 2, p. 125. A tree 40 to 60 feet high, the young shoots 

 deciduously puberulous. Leaves coriaceous, narrowly elliptic to elliptic- 

 lanceolate, shortly and bluntly acuminate, the base cuneate and sometimes 

 slightlj'^ unequal ; both surfaces glabrous and shining, the reticulations 

 when dry distinct or not, the midiib broad on both surfaces ; main nerves 

 11 to 13 pairs, spreading, curving ; length 4 to 9 in. or even 11 in., 

 breadth 1"75 to 2*5 in., petiole '6 to 1 in. Panicles crowded at the ends 

 of the branches, axillary, erect, shorter or longer than the leaves, shortly 

 pedunculate, puberulous ; their branches short, slender, horizontal, 

 cymosely few-flowered. Flowers '1 in. in diam., on. minutely bracteolate 

 pedicels longer than themselves. Sepals 4, thick, ovate or elliptic, 

 obtuse, much shorter than the petals. Petals 4, oblong, very blunt, 

 spreading and reflexed. Stamens 8 ; the anthers narrow, elongate, the 

 bases not sagittate, the apices recurved ; filaments longer than the 

 anthers, flat. Pistils several, one only ripening. Drupe sub-globular, 

 with 4 vertical ridges, two prominent and two obscure, glabrous, 

 purplish-black when ripe ; the stone hard, "4 in. in diam. Engler in DC. 

 Mon. Phan. IV, 193. 



The Andaman and Nicobar Islands : very common. 

 This is put by Engler amongst doubtful species — no doubt as the 

 result of his not having seen good specimens ; for the species is a very 

 well-mai'ked one. Its nearest ally is the Sumatran species B. splendens, 

 Miq. 

 748 



