Streblus.] LXVII. URTICACE^E. 411 



Sub- Himalayan tract west to the Bias river. Oudh forests, Banda, Behar, 

 Bengal, South India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Indian Archipelago. Gene- 

 rally in dry open forests, often on poor soil. Male trees generally more abun- 

 dant than female trees. The leaves are renewed in March. Fl. J an. -March ; fr. 

 May-July. Attains 20 ft., with a short erect trunk, 3-4, rarely 6 ft. girth. 

 Bark ^ in. thick, grey, greenish- white or brown, smooth, with faint ridges, rough 

 when old, with small corky exfoliating scales. Inner substance milky, com- 

 posed of greenish-white, reticulate, soft silky fibres. Wood white, tough and 

 elastic, no distinct heartwood. Weight 42f lb. (Kyd), 45 lb. (Skinner). Value 

 of P. 570 (Kyd), 604 (Skinner). A good hedge-plant, coppices well, and has 

 been recommended for the production of fuel. The twigs are used as tooth- 

 brushes, and the leaves to polish wood and ivory. In Siam paper is made of 

 the bark. The leaves are lopped extensively for fodder. The milky juice is 

 used medicinally, the berries are greedily eaten by birds. 



Phyllochlamys spinosa, Bureau in DC. Prodr. xvii. 218 Syn. Taxotropliis 

 Roxburghii, Blume Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. ii. 78 ; Bedd. Fl. Sylv. Anal. gen. t. 

 26 ; Trophis spinosa, Roxb. 1. c. 762 ; Epicarpurus spinosus, Wight Ic. t. 1962 

 Vern. Sukali, Tel, is a small tree on the hills of the Coromandel coast and 

 farther south in the peninsula, with straight axillary, often leaf- and flower- 

 bearing spines, male fl. in sessile heads, female fl. solitary, short-pedunculate, 

 perianth of 4 lanceolate tapering leaves, enlarged in fruit, and much longer 

 than the yellow cup-shaped berry, from which the seed, enclosed in a thin 

 endocarp, protrudes in a way similar to the seed of Taxus, whence the name of 

 Taxotrophis (uniting the characters of Taxus and Trophis). 



8. PICUS, Linn. 



Trees or shrubs, juice usually milky. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, 

 entire or lobed; stipules amplexicaul, usually deciduous. Flowers uni- 

 sexual, minute, on the inside of a hollow, globose ovoid or pear-shaped 

 receptacle, commonly called a fig, supported at the base by 3 or 4 bracts, 

 the mouth of the receptacle closed by numerous scales in several rows, the 

 inner scales turned inwards, those of the outer row more or less erect. 

 Numerous bractlets generally between the flowers. Eeceptacles usually 

 androgynous, male flowers few, near the mouth, rarely numerous, mixed 

 with the female flowers, or in separate receptacles. Perianth thin, colour- 

 less, hyaline or membranous or subcoriaceous, and then frequently red, 

 of 3-6 segments or distinct leaves, the segments of the female perianth 

 often narrow, and sometimes very thin or entirely wanting. Stamens 1 

 or 2, rarely more, and then opposite to the perianth-segments ; anthers 

 generally of two distinct cells, versatile or basifixed. Ovary 1 -celled, very 

 rarely 2-celled, style usually lateral, short or filiform ; stigma terminal, 

 peltate, or long, penicillate, or bifid. Eeceptacles either in the axils of 

 leaves, generally in pairs, or clustered on leafless but often bracteate race- 

 mose or paniculate branches on the old wood. The fruit generally requires 

 several months to ripen; it consists of the enlarged, generally fleshy recep- 

 tacle, often stalked, with the bracts at the base of the stalk, enclosing num- 

 erous minute seed-like nuts, often surrounded by the persistent membran- 

 ous or succulent perianth. Embryo curved in a fleshy albumen. 



A large genus, comprising upwards of 600 species, of which more than 60 are 

 Indian. Urostig?na, Covellia, and other genera, established by Gasparrini and 



