' EbenacecB. 8 7 



acuminate, acute ; staminodes 6, alt. with stam., deeply laciniate, 

 glabrous; ov. 12-celled; fruit small, a little over | in., ovoid, 

 smooth, red ; seed solitary (rarely 2) about \ in., ovoid, reddish- 

 brown, shining. 



Forests of the dry region; very common. Fl. Feb., March; pale 

 yellow. 



Also in Peninsular India. 



A valuable timber tree; the wood very hard, heavy, and tough, 

 purplish-brown, capable of high pohsh. Has been employed for railway 

 sleepers. The fruit, which is ripe in July, affords food to a large number 

 of people, and is collected and dried either separately or in cakes, and 

 exported from Jaffna to S. India. 



The buds are liable to be transformed into small prickly ovoid bodies 

 (galls ?) simulating a fruit. Young trees have often short, suppressed, 

 conical, semi-spinous branchlets on the main stem, with crowded fascicu- 

 late leaves. 



M. Katiki, L., a native of Malaya, but not of Ceylon, is in Hermann's 

 Herbarium, and is n. 137 of Fl. Zeylanica. The specimen, which is the 

 type for the species, is in young bud, and agrees well with Java specimens. 

 It was probably from a cultivated tree. (See Brandis, Forest Flora, 291, 

 and Trimen in Journ. Linn. Soc. xxiv. 140.) 



LXXX.— EBENACE^E. 



Trees, 1. alt., entire, without stip., fl. small, regular, unisexual, 

 dioecious (rarely monoecious), axillary ; cal. free, usually en- 

 larged in fruit, segm. 3-5 ; cor. tubular or campanulate, lobes 

 3-5, contorted ; male fl. : — stam. 4-64, inserted at base of 

 cor., fil. often unequal, distinct or connate in pairs ; fem. fl. : 

 — staminodes (when present) 4-16, ov. superior, 3-16-celled, 

 with I or 2 ovules in each cell ; fruit indehiscent, usually 

 fleshy; seeds large, few, 2-10, embryo in axis of copious 

 sometimes ruminate endosperm. 



Fl. 3-merous i. Maba. 



Fl. 4- or 5-merous 2. Diospyros. 



All our twenty-four species of this specially Indo-Malayan Family are 

 low-country trees, only two or three extending upwards into the lower 

 montane zone. In the moist region twenty species occur, of which six- 

 teen are restricted to its bounds ; in the dry region only eight are found, 

 four being peculiar to it, viz., Diospyros mojitana, oocarpa, Melanoxylon, 

 and affinis. No less than twelve species are endemic, three of Maba and 

 nine of Diospyros. 



