CELASTRACE.E. 79 



In sholas everywhere on both plateaus, quite common; on 

 the Nilgiris especially near Pykara. Fyson 315, 1729, 447. 

 Bourne 109, 834, 1369, 2048. 



Gen. Dist. South Indian hills. 



The wood of this genus is usually hard and can be put to a variety of 

 uses ; that of our species and several others is, according to Col. Beddome, 

 one of the best substitutes for Boxwood. The red aril on ihe seeds is said 

 to be used in some parts of India by women to mark their foreheads. For 

 a note on the persistence en their capsules of brilliantly coloured seeds 

 see Ternstroemia japonica Thuub, p. 40, and compare Polygala arillata, 

 p, 26, cf. also Botany for India, pp. 264-9. 



MICROTROPIS. F.B.I. 41 III. 



Trees with simple opposite, leaves ; conspicuously 

 erect, with revolute margins ; flowers in terminal much- 

 branched cymose corymbs or in dense clusters on the 

 thick branches ; petals united at the base ; disc reduced 

 to a ring or absent altogether ; ovary with two ovules in 

 each cell ; fruit a capsule with only one seed, and opening 

 in two valves ; seed without aril. 



Species 10 on the mountains of India, Ceylon, the Malay 

 peninsula and Java. 



The two or three species which occur here are unlike each other in 

 general appearance, and in respect of the absence of an aril to the seed 

 and often too of any disc to the flower are not typical of the family. 



Branchlets thick ; flowers almost sessile in dense clusters 



M. ramiflora 



Branchlets normal ; flowers in terminal and axillary corymbs : 

 fruit brown M. microcarpa, 



Branchlets normal ; flowers in terminal and axillary corymbs : 

 fruit crimson ..... . . . . M. ovalifolia 



Microtropis ramiflora Wight; F.B.L i 613, III 3; 

 distinguished from all others of the order and from 

 practically all other trees by the dense clumps of small 

 stalkless flowers along the rather thick branchlets : and 

 among trees in general remarkable for its very stiff 

 nearly erect dark green oval leaves with margins curled 

 back. 



