RUBIACE^. 197 



with short thick branches. Corolla tube very short. 

 Fruit ellipsoid or roundish, black, crowned by the per- 

 sistent, 1/16 inch, calyx-tube (like the English Black 

 Currant). Seeds two or one only, each in its own parch- 

 ment (like Coffee), plano-convex and wedge-shaped, not 

 grooved on the inner side : endosperm hard, ruminate : 

 radicle pointing downwards. 



Very common as a shrub in woods : foliage usually very 

 dark. Nilgiris : Ootacamund to Coonoor. Pulneys: Kodaikanal 

 and below. jFyson 692, 1081, 1193, 1863, ^^9^, 1902, 2600. 

 Bourne 244, 990, 2678. 



Gen. Dist. South Indian hills. 



■'^ var astcphana with less crowded cymes and scarcely 

 raised calyx limb to the fruit. Pulneys. 



Psychotria bisulcata Wight and Arnott ; Herb. Wight 

 1351!; F.B.L iii 171, LXXV 36. Leaves elliptic or 

 obovate, broadest near the middle, and the two ends 

 nearly equal : nerves about nine pairs. Pyrenes a shal- 

 low T-shape. A dark leafed shrub growing, like 

 P. congest a, in the shade of large trees. 



Nilgiris : Kotagiri very common. Fpon 1743. 

 Gen. Dist. Doubtfully in Ceylon. 



LASIANTHUS. f.b.i. 75 lxxix. 



Shrubs with small flowers nearly sessile in the leaf- 

 axils and characterised most prominently by the evil 

 smell of the leaves or fruit. In some species the spread- 

 ing branches with leaves all facing upwards remind one 

 of the Coffee. 



Branches compressed at the nodes. Leaves mostly 

 facing all upwards : nerves starting mostly from below 

 the centre of the midrib and curving forward to meet or 

 die out in the margin near the apex ; joined by innu- 

 merable and close-set horizontal simple or forked veins. 

 Flowers small, in axillary clusters or cymes peduncled 



