BRIDELIA.] EUPHORBIACEE. 85 
3. BRIDELIA, Willd.; Fl. Brit. Ind. V, 267. 
Shrubs or trees. Leaves alternate, quite entire, sometimes 
with strong straight nerves and prominent veins. Flowers small 
or minute, moneecious or dicecious, arranged in axillary or spicate 
clusters, sessile or very shortly pedicelled ; bracts small, scale- 
like. Maxz-flowers numerous. Perianth double. Calyx-segments 
5, valvate. Petals 5, short, scale-like, stalked or spathulate. 
Disk broad, pulvinate or adnate to the calyx-tube. Stamens 5; 
filaments united below in a column which bears a terminal] pistillode, 
free and spreading above ; anther-cells 2, parallel. FEMALE-flowers 
few or solitary. Calyx-segments usually narrower than in the 
male. Disk double, the inner forming a membranous central 
truncate cone often enclosing the young ovary. Ovary 2 (rarely 
3)-celled, glabrous; styles free or shortly united below, forked 
or subentire. Fruit a small drupe with one or two usually 1-seeded 
cocci or pyrenes. Seed with usually fleshy sometimes membranous 
albumen, cotyledons thin or fleshy.—Species about 30, in Trop. 
Asia, Africa and Australia. 
Flowers dicecious; leaves deciduous; main 
lateral nerves 15-20 pairs, straight, pro- 
minent ; drupe globose.—A small tree with 
stout more of less persistent spines . I. B. retusa. 
Flowers moneecious ; leaves persistent ; nerves 
more or less arching :— 
Leaves glabrous or slightly tomentose 
beneath, but not glaucous ; main lateral 
nerves 10-15 pairs; calyx in fruit not 
enlarged; drupe fusiform.—A _ small 
tree 3 : 2. B. montana, var. 
communis. 
Leaves pubescent beneath, or if at length 
glabrous then glaucous beneath; main 
lateral nerves 6-9 pairs; calyx in fruit 
distinctly enlarged; drupe oblong.—A 
scandent sometimes spinose shrub. . 3. B. stipularis. 
1, B. retusa. Spreng. Syst. Veg. iii, 48; Brandis For. Fl. 
449, t. 55 ; Ind. Trees 560 ; F. B. I. v, 268 ; Watt. E. D.; Kanjilal 
For. Fl. (ed. 2) 345 ; Gamble Man. 595 ; Prain Beng. Pl. 927 ; Cooke 
