MYRTACEjE. 



Nat. syst. ed. 2. p. 43. 



MELALEUCA. 



Calyx-tube nearly hemispherical ; limb 5-partite. Petals 5. 

 Stamens numerous, combined into 5 elongated bundles, which 

 alternate with the petals. Anthers incumbent. Style filiform. 

 Stigma obtuse. Capsule connate with and enclosed in the 

 thickened tube of the calyx, which is sessile on and adnate at 

 its base to the flower-bearing branch : 3-celled, many-seeded. 

 Seeds angular. Trees or shrubs. Leaves alternate or opposite, 

 quite entire, equal at the base. Flowers perfectly sessile or 

 somewhat combined with the branch, arranged in spikes or heads, 

 white or yellowish or purplish. W. and A. 



150. M. Cajuputi Roxb.fi. ind. iii. 394. W. and Am. i. 326. 

 S. and C. ii. t. 84. M. minor Smith in Rees. DC.prodr. iii. 212. 

 M. Leucadendron Lam. illustr. t. 641. f. 4. Arbor alba javanica 

 Rumph. ii. 74. Moluccas. 



Trunk tolerably erect, but crooked, and slender for the age of the 

 trees. Bark of a very light or whitish ash-colour, soft, thick, and 

 spongy, pretty smooth on the surface, the exterior part peeling off from 

 time to time in thin flakes, like that of the birch tree ; and the interior 

 part separable into numerous lamellae, like the leaves of a book. 

 Branches scattered, with the slender twigs often drooping as completely 

 as in the weeping willow, round and smooth ; young shoots sericeous. 

 Leaves alternate, projecting in every direction, but most frequently ver- 

 tical, short-stalked, narrow-lanceolate, while young sericeous, some- 

 times slightly falcate, entire, from 3 to 5 inches long and from ^ to f 

 of an inch broad ; on being bruised they smell strong of the balsam 

 they yield, yet the cells which contain this aromatic fluid, are scarcely 

 visible in the fresh leaves. Spikes terminal, and from the extreme 

 axills, downy ; while in flower there is only a scaly conic bud at the 

 apex, which soon advances into a leafy branchlet. Bracts solitary, 

 lanceolate, silky, 3-flowered, caducous. Flowers ternate, sessile, small, 

 white, scentless. Calyx urceolate, half-superior, sericeous ; margins of 

 5 rounded deciduous segments. Petals 5, orbicular, short-clawed, white, 

 much longer than the segments of the calyx. Filaments from 30 to 40, 

 united into five portions at the base, 3 or 4 times longer than the petals, 

 and with them inserted into the large, villous, 5-lobed rim of the calyx, 

 alternate with its segments. Anthers ovate-cordate, with a yellow 

 gland on the apex. Ovary ovate, with the lower half united to the 

 calyx, 3-celled, with numerous ovules attached to an elevated recep- 

 tacle in the inner and lower angle of each cell ; style rather longer 

 than the stamens ; stigma obscurely 3-lobed. Capsules completely 

 enveloped in the thick, fleshy, gibbous, permanent calyx, 3-lobed, 



