LVII. MELASTOMACE.E. 499 



1. OSBECKIA, Linn. 



Herbs or shrubs, usually erect and setose ; branches coininouly 

 4-gonous. Leaves subcoriaceous, sessile or petiolate, 3-7-nerved, 

 usually quite entire. Flowers teruiiual, solitary, ca|)itate or paniculate; 

 bracts olten forming an involucre. Calyx usually clothed with pectinate 

 scales or slellate hairs; tube ovoid, urceolale or sui)globose, soiuetimes 

 much produced beyond the ovary ; lobes 4-5, subulate or lanceolate, 

 deciduous, generally with bristle-pointed teeth alternating with them. 

 Petals 5 (rarely 4), obovate, often ciliate. Stamens twice as many as 

 the petals, equal or subequal ; anthers large, obtuse, or attenuated, or 

 peaked, the coimective rarely inconspicuously produced below the base, 

 but usually dilated and \\itli 2 tubercles there. Ovary ovoid, ;|-iui'ei'ior, 

 setose at the free vertex, 4-5-celled ; ovules numerous in each cell. 

 Capsule included in the calyx-tube and partially adnate to it below, 

 4-5-valved at the apex. Seeds minute, numerous, cochleate. — Disteib. 

 Tropical Asia, Australia, Madagascar, and Tropical Africa ; species 51. 



Calyx-teelh y', in. ; petals |-J in. long ; fruit 8-ribbed 1. 0. truncata. 



Calyx-teeth \-\ in.; petals \-\ in. long; iriiit sometimes ob- 

 scurely many-ribbed 2. 0. cupularis. 



1. Osbeckia truncata, Don, in Wight 6f Am. Prodr. (1834) 

 p. 322. Annual, herbaceous, 4-16 in. high ; stem simple or more or 

 less branched, 4-gonous, and as well as the branches clothed with long 

 stiff spreading hairs. Leaves |-li by |-f in., drying yellow, elliptic, 

 subacute, densely clothed on both sides with rather long hairs, 3-nerved, 

 entire or sometimes very slightly serrulate, base subacute ; petioles ■^- 

 g in. long, bristly. Flowers capitate, often with 2 or 4 leaves clo'se 

 under the head; pedicels iV~8 ^°- ^^"g 5 bracts ovate, jV in. long, 

 bristle-ciliate, glabrous on their backs. Calyx \ in. long, clothed 

 externally with long stellate, intermixed with simple bristly hairs ; tube 

 caoipanulate; teeth erect, jV iu- long, broadly triangulal', bristle-ciliate 

 and with a tuft of long spreading bristles springing from an enlarged 

 glandular apex ; intermediate teeth scarcely ^^ in. long, stout, terete 

 with a tuft of bristles from an enlarged glandular apex. Petals g-i in. 

 long, purple. Ovary with 16-20 bristles at the apex. Fruit ovoid- 

 oblong, 8-ribbed. Fl. B. I. v. 2, p. 514 ; Wight, Icon. t. 375 ; Cogniaux, 

 in DC. Monogr. Phau. v. 7, p. 327 ; A\''oodr. in Journ. Bomb. Xat. v. 

 11 (1898) p. 637. OshecJcin znjlonica'?, Grab. Cat. p. 71 (not of Linn.). 

 Oshcckia LcsclienauUicma, Dalz. & Gibs. p. 92 {not of DC.). — Flowers : 

 Oct.-Dec. 



KosKAN" : Sfoc/t-gl, Law'., ^'immo ex Graham. S.M. Country: Londa, Cooke!, 

 Woodi-owl; Badanii, ]]'oodrotvl; Eamgliat, Low ex Graham. Kanaka: Supa 

 (N. Kanara), liitchie, llCiO I ; Kala naddi, Ritchie; Dalzell\ — Distrib. India 

 (VV. Peninsula, Cliota Nagpur, East Bengal, Beliar). 



2, Osbeckia cupularis, Bon, in Wiglit S,- Am. Prodr. (1834) 

 p. 323. Herbaceous, biennial or (not improbably) perennial, 8-20 in. 

 high, branched ; root thick, nodose. Stems many, 4-gonous, rather 

 slender, densely clothed with simple appressed long bristly hairs. Leaves 

 drying yellow, 1-2| by |-1| in., elliptic or elliptic-oblong, usually 

 entire, 3- (or sometimes 5-) nerved, hairy on both surfaces, base 

 acute or tubobtuse ; petioles -{^-l in. long. Flowers 4-5-mcrous, 



