198 FLORA OF MADRAS. [Pyrenacantlw . 



A soft climber with long-petioled cordate dentate leaves and 

 slender whitish racemes of minute flowers. 



6. Pyrenacantha, Hook. 



Climbing shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire or coarsely toothed, 

 penninerved. Flowers minute, dioecious, c? in filiform axillary 

 spikes, ? in capitate heads, monochlamydeous. Perianth deeply 

 4-lobed, lobes oblong, inflexed at tip. Stamens 4, alternate with 

 the perianth-lobes ; filaments short ; anthers small, dehiscing 

 longitudinally. Ovary in cf a villous pistillode, in ? oblong, 

 1-celled ; style ; stigma sessile with many radiating branches ; 

 ovules 2, pendulous, collateral. Fruit a drupe with thin stone 

 provided on the inner surface with numerous obtuse horizontal 

 spines penetrating the albumen. Seed solitary ; albumen fleshy ; 

 cotyledons large, foliaceous. 



PYRENACANTHA VOLUBILIS, Hook. Bot. Misc. ii. 108 ; Wt. 111. 



Suppl. tt. 9. 10. 



W. Ghats, in the Pulney Hills (Bourne) and Hills of Tinnevelly 

 (Beddome, etc.). 



A much-branched climbing shrub with slender branchlets, 

 narrowly rhomboid lanceolate leaves, 3-5 in. long with 

 a pair of glands at the base, male flowers in filiform 

 spikes, female in pedunculate capitate heads, drupe ovoid 

 orange-red. 



7. Sarcostigma, W. & A. 



Climbing shrubs. Leaves alternate, simple. Flowers dioecious, 

 minute, in distant sessile fascicles on elongate interrupted 

 pendulous lateral spikes. Calyx cupshaped, unequally 4-6-lobed. 

 Petals 4-6, free or united at base into a short tube, valvate, at 

 length reflexed. Stamens 4-6, hypogynous, alternate with the 

 petals : filaments slender ; anthers versatile : in ? reduced to 

 short subulate staminodes. Ovary in 3 conical, ovules none ; in 

 ? sessile, 1-celled, superior ; stigma umbonate, sessile ; ovules 

 2 pendulous from the apex of the cell with thickened funicle. 

 Fruit an oblong somewhat flattened drupe with woody putamen. 

 Seeds pendulous ; albumen ; cotyledons fleshy, connate ; radicle 

 small, superior. 



