Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 69 



2. Leptospermum, Forst. 



Shrubs or small trees, glabrous or silky-pubescent. Leaves alternate, 

 entire, rigid, Y?ith 1-3 nerves or nerveless. Flowers solitary and 

 axillary, or 2-3 together at the ends of the branches, rarely peduncled, 

 sometimes polygamous ; bracts broad, scarious, often imbricate, the 

 lower ones caducous. Calyx-tuhe broadly campanulate or turbinate, 

 adnate to the ovary below, the free upper part broad ; lobes 5. Petals 

 6, spreading. Stamens numerous, in a single series, not longer than 

 the petals ; anthers versatile, their parallel cells bursting longitudinally. 

 Ovary inferior or ^-inferior, enclosed in the calyx-tube, 5- or more- 

 celled, rarely 3- or 4-celled ; style filiform, inserted in a deep depression 

 of the ovary, sometimes short; stigma capitate or peltate. GaiJsule 

 usually exceeding the calyx-tube, opening loculicidally from above. 

 Seeds numerous, linear or winged, often sterile ; embryo straight. 

 DiSTRiB. — Species upwards of 30, chiefly Australian, a few in New 

 Zealand and New Caledonia. 



NOTE. 



As in BaecTcea the species have been separated ofE into several genera which 

 have been reduced by Messrs. Bentham and Hooker. 



Leptospermum flavescbns, Sm. in Trans. Linn. Soc. Ill, 262. A 

 bush or small scraggy tree with thin, striate, 4-angled branches : the 

 young parts glabrous or sericeous. Leaves coriaceous, narrowly oblong- 

 lanceolate to oblanceolate, obtuse, often with a deciduous point, sub- 

 sessile; when dry distinctly dotted beneath and obscurely 3-nerved, 

 glabrous or silky on the midrib beneath and on the edges, from '4 to 1 in. 

 long and "1 to '3 in. broad. Flowers sessile or sub-sessilo, about '5 or "6 in. 

 in diam. (when dry). Calyx-tube glabrous or sericeous. Capsule much 

 depressed, surrounded by the calyx-tube, glabrous or hairy, 5-ridged, 

 pitted, opening by 5 valves, '25 to "30 in. in diam. (when dry). DC. Prod. 

 Ill, 227 ; Hook. fil. Fl. Tasm. I, 139; Benth. Fl. Austral. Ill, 104. 



This species is common and widely distributed in Australia and 

 has several well-marked varieties of which two occur in our region. 



VAR. commune, Benth. Fl. Austral. Ill, 104. Young branches 

 leaves and calyx-tube glabrous or glabrescent. Leaves narrowly oblono* 

 or linear-lanceolate, '1 to '15 in. broad. L. jiavescens, Bot. Mag. t. 

 2695. L. amloinensis, Blume Bijdr. 1100: Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. I, 

 68; DC. Prod. Ill, 229: Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. I, Pt. 1, 404; Duthie 

 in Hook. fil. Fl. Br. Ind. II, 464. L. polygalifolium, Salisb. Prod. 350 ; 

 L. Thea, Willd. Spec. PI. II, 949. L. porophyllum, Cav. Ic. IV, 17, 

 t. 330, fig. 2. Macldottia amloinensis, Korth. in Ned. Kruidk. Arch. I, 

 196. Myrtus amloinensis, Ruraph. Herb. Amb. II, 77, t. 28. 



499 



