140  ' URTICACEZ. [ CupRANIA. 
dicecious, bracteolate. Mate FLOWERS: Sepals 3-5, oblong, obtuse, 
adnate to 2-4 bracts, imbricate. Stamens 4, erect, more cr less 
adnate to the sepals. Pistillode subulate or obsolete. FEM. 
FLOWERS : Sepals broader than in the male, embracing the ovary. 
Ovary straight ; style terminal, simple or 2-armed ; arms stout or 
slender ; ovule pendulous. Fruit of ovoid compressed crustaceous 
achenes enclosed in the enlarged fleshy bracts and perianth and 
forming globose and fleshy heads.. Seed with a membranous testa, 
albumen scanty, cotyledons twisted and folded, embracing the 
slender upcurved radicle.—Species 3 or 4, in Asia, E. Africa, 
Australia and New Caledonia. 
C. javanensis, TJ recul in Ann. Sc. Nat. Sér. 8, VIII, 128; Brand. 
For. Fl. 425; Ind. Tress 614; F. B. I. V., 588; . Watt E.. D.; 
Kanjilal For. Fl. (ed. 2), 378 ; Gamble Man. 651; . rain Beng. Pl. 
970.—Vern. Manda. 
A large straggling or subscandent spiny shrub or small tree; bark 
smooth, thin, yellowish-brown, with oblong horizontal lenticels ; 
branchlets pubescent; spines usually curved. Leaves glabrous 
subcoriaceous, 1-4 in. long, oblong or obovate to oblanceolate, obtuse, 
acute or acuminate; base obtuse; lateral nerves slender, 8-10 pairs ; 
petioles } in. or less. Flower-heads solitary or in pairs, pubescent ; 
the males } in. across; the female-heads enlarging to ? in. in diam. 
when in fruit. Frm. FLOWERS: Perianth-lobes 4, thickened and 
velvety at the tips. Styles 2-fid. Fruit an irregularly shaped com- 
pound berry somewhat resembling a small custard-apple (Anona), 
pinkish-orange and velvety when ripe. 
Dehra Dun and Siwalik range and eastwards along the sub-Himalayan 
tracts of Rohilkhand and N. Oudh. Flowers Apr.-June, and the fruit 
ripens in Aug. Distris: Trop. Himalaya from the Sutlej eastwards 
to Sikkim ; also Khasia Hills, E. Bengal, Orissa and Ceylon ; extend- 
ing to Burma, the Malay Peninsula, China, East Africa and Australia. 
The wood is used as fuel and the ripe fruit is eaten. The leaves of 
this shrub are often attacked by a fungus which converts them into a 
whitish brittle mass. This substance which is known by the name of 
* Mande-ki-roti’ is eaten by the villagers in Dehra Dun. This shrub 
bears a great resemblance to Plecospermum spinosum both in habit 
and foliage, but in the latter the stamens are inflexed in bud, as in 
the tribe Moree, and the spines are anc more slender and nearly 
straight. I have seen no specimens of Plecospermum from within 
the area of this flora and I am inclined to believe that Cudrania 
javanensis has often been mistaken for it. 
