260 ERICACE^. 



axillary racemes of small snow-white, heather-shaped 

 flowers or dark blue berries. 



Young shoots smooth, often red, angular or com- 

 pressed. Leaves very hard and stiff, erect or spreading ; 

 stalks thick, red ; blade ovate, rounded at the base, 

 crenale with small points from base to apex, and ending 

 in a short blunt point : midrib stout ; nerves impressed 

 on the upper side ; veins few and impressed on both 

 sides : upper surface glossy ; under light-coloured, dotted 

 with black or brown glands. Calyx-teeth triangular, 

 1/20 inch: bracteoles below it 1/16 inch, ovate acute. 

 Corolla egg-shaped, more or less five-angled, Ye inch long 

 and broad at its widest; mouth 1/30 inch, with minute 

 teeth : fragrant. Stamens ten ; filaments broadest about 

 the middle; anthers 1/20 inch, brown, attached by their 

 backs, flask-shaped and narrowed upwards, ending in 

 four horns, and opening outwards by slits near the 

 top. Ovary green, minutely pubescent, ten-lobed ; style 

 straight ; stigma minute, in a terminal depression. Berry 

 J^ inch, dull cobalt blue with red stalk, impressed at the 

 top with five radiating marks. Wight Sp. Nilg. t. 130; 



1. 1195. 



Very common round sholas, in thickets and on the open 

 downs. Pulneys : abundant near Kodaikanal, flowering before 

 the summer : Nilgiris abundant ; Ootacamund, Pykara, Coonoor ; 

 flowering early, and fruiting in May and June. Fyson 341, 

 1036, 1 1 30. Bourne 95, 45^9- 



Gen. Dist. Himalayas from Nepal westwards ; mountains of Burma, 

 South India and Ceylon. 



The fruit is more like an apple than an ordinary berry, for the seeds 

 are not immersed in the flesh but enclosed in the cells of the ovary, 

 separate from the flesh outside them. 



Honey is secreted round the base of the ovary and held in by the ten 

 little pockets between it and the stamens, and prevented from flowing out 

 by the enlargements of the filaments. The anthers swing easily on their 

 filaments, and their horns touch the inside of the corolla. They open 

 outwards and any pollen that may be set free is caught by the hairs on the 

 inside of the corolla, which are directed towards the base (i.e., upwards as 

 the flower hangs) and thereby prevented from falling out. The honey 

 can be obtained only by an insect clever enough to hang on the flower 

 and probe upwards. The narrow entrance to the flower would ca,use the 



