630 EUPHORBIACE. [Alewrites. 
KeRMADEC Is~uANDS: Sunday Island, not uncommon on the northern and 
eastern sides of the island, 7. F’. C. Candle-nut. 
Widely distributed in the Pacific islands and tropical Asia, also extensively 
planted and naturalised in hot countries. The seeds or ‘‘nuts’’ contain an 
excellent oil, so that in many parts of Polynesia they are strung on sticks and 
used as candles, whence the English name of ‘‘ candle-nut.” 
4, HOMALANTHUS, A. Juss. 
Glabrous shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate, petiolate, 
broad, entire, often glaucous; stipules deciduous. Flowers in ter- 
minal racemes, small, apetalous, moncecious. Male flowers: Very 
numerous, occupying all the upper portion of the raceme. Calyx of 
1 or 2 minute flat appressed sepals. Stamens 6-50; filaments very 
short; anther-cells distinct, divaricate, longitudinally 2 - valved. 
Female flowers: Few or solitary at the base of the raceme. Calyx 
2-3-partite. Ovary 2-3-celled; styles 2-3, linear, entire; ovules 
1 in each cell. Capsule didymous or trigonous, fleshy, indehiscent 
or splitting into 2-3 2-valved cocci. Seeds with a fleshy aril. 
Species 7-8, scattered through the Pacific islands, Australia, and the Malay 
Archipelago. 
1. H. polyandrus, Cheesem.— A handsome slender tree 
10-25 ft. high, everywhere perfectly glabrous; branches brittle, 
terete, marked with the prominent scars of the fallen leaves. 
Leaves in young plants 3-12 in. diam., in old much smaller, 2—4 in. 
long, broadly triangular-ovate or rhomboid-orbicular, acute, mem- 
branous, somewhat undulate, glaucous beneath; petiole as long or 
longer than the blade; stipules #in. or more. Racemes slender, 
erect, 4-8in. long. Male flowers: Very numerous, rather loosely 
placed, jin. diam.; bracts minute, 1-2-glandular at the base. 
Stamens about 40, very short, closely packed in a globose head. 
Female flowers: 1 to 4 at the base of the raceme, on long slender 
pedicels, drooping. Capsule 4—2in., trigonous, 3-celled, splitting 
into 8 cocci. Seed enveloped in a yellowish aril, frequently per- 
sistent on the axis of the fruit.— H. nutans, Hook. f. in Journ. 
Linn. Soc. i. 127 (not of Guill.). Carumbium polyandrum, Hook, f. 
Handb. N.Z. Fl. 248; Cheesem. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xx. (1888) 172. 
Kermaprec Istanps: Sunday Island, plentiful; Macaulay Island, a few 
plants in the crater-basin, 7. #'. C. Flowers most of the year. 
Endemic, but very closely allied to the Polynesian H. pedicellatus, Benth. 
(Carumbium nutans, Muell. Arg.), principally differing in the larger number of 
stamens. 
OrvER LXXVI. URTICACEA. 
Herbs or shrubs or trees, of very diversified habit and foliage. 
Leaves alternate or opposite, entire or toothed or more rarely 
divided; stipules present. Flowers unisexual, small and incon- 
