N'apoleono'a] liii. myrtace^. 363 



2^. or rarely 3 in. in diameter ; bark of the trunk and older branches 

 grey, rough ; branches erect-spreading at the apex, crowded in a 

 whorled manner on the trunk, virgately elongated ; whorls 5 to 7 

 rarely H to 2 ft. distant, nodose-thickened ; branchlets and twigs 

 drooping, beset in places with whitish-grey warts which become white, 

 the younger branches acutely quadrangular, the older ones obtusely so, 

 the youngest ones very acutely triquetrous ; leaves variable in size, 

 mostly 6 to 7 in. long by 2\ to 3 in. broad, coriaceous, deep-green 

 above, paler and bright-green beneath, pellucid-punctate, oblong- 

 lanceolate, repand or obscurely and obtusely dentate, obliquely 

 terminated at the apex with a rounded-obtuse acumen an inch long ; 

 petiole short, scarcely \ in. long, thick, gibbovis, fleshy, curved, with 

 an oily gloss shortly 2-winged by the decurrent blade ; no little glands 

 at the base of the blade ; calyx-tube furnished at the base with broad 

 ovate keeled white-greenish bracteoles, wholly blood-reddish, varnished- 

 glossy ; calyx-lobes green, acuminate, thickened in a triangular manner 

 at the apex ; corolla rather fleshy, imbricate-subcontorted in eestivation, 

 snow-white at first shortly after the opening of the flower, afterwards 

 turning rose-coloured, and finally yellowish, never bluish, the corona 

 at the outer base purplish-peach-coloured ; stamens apparently 20 ; 

 filaments broad, distant, cohering by means of a thin connecting 

 membrane, monadelphous ; the alternate ones sterile ; anthers 10, 

 actually extrorse, but by the bending of the staminal tube appearing 

 to be introrse, apparently 1 -celled ; stigma 5-angled, pitted at the 

 concave apex, the angles slightly keeled from the centre towards the 

 circumference, the keels ending at the apex in an erect bifid crest ; 

 fruit resembling a pomegranate. In the more elevated primitive 

 forests, in company with Monodora Myristica Dun. and a species of 

 Tetracera, Symphonia (jlohul[fera L.f., Dichapetalum angolense Chodat, 

 etc., fl. and f r. from Feb. to June, not abundant ; in the dense forests 

 of the mountains of Queta, near Comuengue between N-delle and the 

 river Luinha, with few fl. and fr., 21 May 1856 ; Moangue, N-delle, 

 end of June 1856. No. 4592. A small evergreen tree 7 to 15 ft. high, 

 with subverticillate branches and whitish-rose handsome flowers. In 

 primitive forests of the Queta mountains, with fl. buds fl. and ripe fr. 

 on the same branch. May 1856. Coll. Carp. 568. 



Sierra Leone. — A very elegant shrub ; flowers from whitish to 

 rose-coloured. Freetown ; ripe fr. given to Welwitsch by Epfen- 

 hausen. Coll. Carp. 567. 



LIV. MELASTOMACE^. 



The proportionately very limited number of the Melastomacese in 

 Angola, so far as yet discovered, notwithstanding the attention 

 which has been devoted to their investigation, leads to the belief 

 either that in Afiica they are generally less abundant south of the 

 equator than north of it, or that the greater pai-t of them occur 

 in the highlands of Songo, Duque de Braganea, and other counti'ies 

 lying east of the province. (Welwitsch, Apont. p. 570 n. 169). 



1. OSBECKIA L.; Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. i. p. 744 (1867). 

 Antherotoma Hook. f. in Benth. & Hook, f., I.e., p. 745. 

 1. 0. antherotoma ISTaud. in Ann. Sc. Nat., Ser. 3, xiv. p. 56 

 (1850) ; Cogniaux in DC. Monogr. Phan. vii. p. 330 (1891). 

 Antherotoma Naudini Hook. f. in Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. i. 



