Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula, 115 



Bidai (7651) ; Perak : Kenring (Wray 54), Tomoh (Machado). Dis- 

 tri-b. India, Ceylon, Burmah, Malay Archipelago, China, New Cale- 

 donia. 



Native names " Tebu K'loi," " Seburas," " Pakululoi." Fruit 

 eaten by natives. Common in rocky woods, usually in hill districts. 



2. COMMELINA, Linn. 



Herbs usually slender and creeping, ascending. Flowers in short 

 branched cymes, enclosed in a complicate or funnel-shaped green 

 spathe, terminal on the branches. Sepals 3, herbaceous, blue or white. 

 Stamens 3 perfect and 3 sterile. Ovary 3 or 2 celled, 2 cells with 1 

 to 2 ovules, 1 empty or 1 ovuled. Style short. Stigma small capi- 

 tate. Capsule thin oblong beaked retracted into the spathe loculicidal. 

 Seeds ellipsoid, or angled pitted or reticulate. 



Species about 90. Tropics and sub-tropics of both hemispheres. 

 Weak or prostrate herbs, stems slender. 



Leaves ovate lanceolate, suberect ... 1. C. nudiflora. 



Leaves narrow lanceolate prostrate ... 2. C. attenuata. 



Leaves elliptic ... ... ... ... 3. C. benghalensis. 



Stout plant with large heads of funnel- 

 shaped spathes ... ••• ... ... 4. C. obliqaa. 



1. C. NUDIFLOEA, 1. sp. PI. 41. Stem long creeping and rooting 

 ascending thin. Leaves lanceolate acute 2-3 inches long £ inch wide, 

 base narrowed, sheaths ampliate a inch long. Spathes complicate 

 peduncled ovate lanceolate i-li inch long, peduncle h inch long. 

 Cymes 2, branches 1 to 3 flowered. Sepals ovate boat-shaped white 

 with a blue outer edge. Petals 2 reniform unguiculate i inch long and 

 wide, and one much smaller ovate reniform not clawed t 3 e inch 

 long, all cobalt blue. Stamens 6, 3 long with slender blue filaments. 

 Anthers elliptic black 3 sterile with blue filaments and irregular pear- 

 shaped divaricate anthers. Style very short shorter than the sterile 

 stamens. Capsule elliptic beaked. Seeds cylindric reticulate black. 

 Hook. fil. Fl. Brit. Ind. VI. 369. C. communis Walt. Fl. Carol. 68. 

 Kunth. Enum. IV. 36. Clarke Comm. and Cyrt. Beng. t. I. Monogr. 

 144, t. I. f. 56. C. ccespitosa Roxb. Fl. Ind. I. 174. C. diffusa Burm. 

 Fl. Ind. 18, t. 7, f. 2. C. agraria Kunth. I.e. 38. Hassk. Commel. 

 Ind. 26. C. salicifolia Boj. Hort. Maur. 360 not of Roxb. C. deficiens 

 Flor. des Serres t. 1824 not Hook. Whole peninsula in waste ground. 



Singapore : Bajau (Ridley 4599) Toas (1757) ; Johor; Malacca; 

 Sungei Ujong ; Perak; Penang (Curtis 1224). Distribution, Africa, 

 India, Malaya, Australia, Polynesia, North and South America. 



Native names, " Rumput Aur," " Rumput Kukupu " and " Tapak 

 Eti." The leaves are used for poulticing sores, and the shoots cooked 



