MALLOTUS. ] EUPHORBIACEM. Ill 



A small much-branched evergreen tree with a thin dark-grey bark ; 

 young parts and inflorescence tawny or rusty-pubescent. Leaves 

 alternate, variable in size and shape, 3-6 in. long, ovate ovate -oblong 

 or lanceolate, acuminate, entire or sometimes toothed, glabrous above, 

 sub-glaucously pubescent and with many close -set orbicular reddish 

 glands beneath, reticulately veined, base rounded or acute, strongly 

 3 -nerved and with 4-7 pairs of lateral nerves above the basal ones ; 

 petiole about half the length of the blade, fulvous-pubesc-cnt and with 

 two small sessile glands one on each side of the summit. Flowers 

 small, dioecious. MALE flowers sessile or nearly so, in erect terminal 

 spikes longer than the leaves. Sepals usually 4, lanceolate, acute. 

 FEM. flowers sessile in short spikes. Sepals 3 or 4. Cap&ules J- in. 

 in diam., 3-lobed and 3-valved, covered with a bright red powder 

 composed of fine grains of a resinous substance mixed with minute 

 stellate hairs. Seeds about -J in. in diam., subglobose, black. 



Very common within the area, and often associated with sal. Flowers 

 during the cold season and the fruit ripens from March to May 

 DISTRIB. : Outer Himalayan ranges from the Indus eastwards, up to 

 4,500 ft. ; and throughout tropical India ; extending to Ceylon, 

 Burma, the Andaman and Malay Islands, China and Australia. The 

 red resinous grains with which the ripe capsules are covered is the 

 well known kamela powder. It is much valued as a dye, especially 

 for silk, and is also extensively used as a vermifuge. The bark is 

 sometimes employed in tanning, and the wood affords good fuel. 



18. HOMONOIA, Lour. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 455. 



Rigid shrubs. Leaves alternate, long, narrow and subentire or 

 short and toothed, glandular-lepidote. Flowers usually dioecious, 

 apetalous and without any disk, arranged in many-or few-flowered 

 axillary spikes, or from the old wood. MALE flowers : Calyx 

 globose, splitting into 3 valvate segments. Stamens many, in a 

 dense globose cluster of branched filaments ; anther-cells sub- 

 globose, divaricate, connective obscure. Pistillode none. FEM. 

 flowers : Sepals 5-8, narrow, unequal, imbricate, caducous. 

 Ovary 3-celled, styles entire, spreading, papillose, ovules solitary in 

 each cell. Fruit a small capsule of 3 smooth 2-valved cocci, Seeds 

 rounded on the back, slightly angular on the inner face ; testa 

 cmstaceous, hard with a thin fleshy coat, albumen fleshy, coty- 

 ledons broad and flat. Species 3 or 4, Indian or Malayan. 



