MELASTOMACE^. 29 



anthers bearing a dorsal gland and a basilar and dorsal prolongation 

 of the connective, like those of Moiuiri. The placenta is central 

 free, and supports from six to twelve ascending ovules, with micropyle 

 exterior and inferior. The fruit is an umbilicate berry, the seed of 

 which, ordinarily single, encloses an exalbuminous embryo with pointed 

 and involute cotyledons. Memecylon comprises glabrous trees and 

 shrubs from the tropical regions of the old world. The leaves are 

 opposite, sessile or nearly so, penninerved or obscurely trinerved, entire 

 and coriaceous. The flowers,^ sometimes dioecious,^ are in simple or 

 compound cymes, axillary in most species, axillary and terminal in 

 that named Spathandra,^ A hundred species have been described.* 



This family was established by A. L. de Jessieu^ in 1789, under 

 the title Melastomce, He included in it nine genera, placing Acis- 

 anthem among the LythrariacecB, and Monriria and Memecylon among 

 the Onagrariarice, In 1818, R. Bkown ^ gave it the name of Mela- 

 stomacece, and insisting on some of the characters of the plants con- 

 tained in it, particularly the cavities in which the anthers are lodged 

 in the bud, added to it Memecylon, following the example of Dupetit- 

 Thouaks,^ and considered them as intermediate between Myrtacece 

 and Melastomacece. In 1827, 1828, De Candolle in the "Prodromus"^ 

 and in a special memoir,^ gave a description of all the Melastomacece 

 then kno^vTi, profiting by the labours bestowed upon this family by 

 Humboldt and Bonpland,^" by Don,^^ by Shrank and Martius,^^ and 

 by Seringe.^^ He distinguished sixty-eight genera, divided into two 

 sub-orders, Melastomece and Chananthece, the former comprising 

 three tribes of Lavoisierece, Ehexiecp. and Miconiece. In 1839, End- 

 LiCHER,^'^ admitting the division of the Melastomacece into two sub- 



' Small, white or bluish. ^ Co>7ffo, 434 ; Blisc. Works (ed. Benn.) i. 116. 



2 In Lijnderna (Zoll. et Mor. Verz. 10). ' Obs. 57. 



3 GuiLLEM. et Pekr. Fl. Sen. Tent. i. 313, t. 71. » ni. 99, Ord. 76. 



* RoxB. PL Corom. t. 82.— Wight and Arn. » Mem. Melastom. (Paris, 1828, 4to). 



Prodr. i. 319.— Wight, Icon. t. 276-279 ; III. t. ^o Monogr. Melastom. (Paris, 1806-1823) I. 



93.— MiQ. Fl. Ind.-Bat. i. p. i. 572.— A. Gray, Melastomece, 142 p. 60 t. col. ; II. Rhexice, 158 p. 



L\it. St. E.tpl. Exp. Bot. i. 573, t. 71.— Thw, 60 t. col. 



Fmm. PI. Z??//. 110.— Seem. i^/. Vit. 84.— Benth. " Mem. Wern. Soc. iv. (1823) 281. 



Niger, 357 {Spathandra).—Yi.ooyi.Y. Oliv. Fl. 12 Ex DC. loe. cit.; Nov. Gen. et Spec. PL 



Trop. Afr. ii. 441.— Walp. Rep. ii. 148; Ann. ^quin. iii. 160. 



ii. 612 ; iii. 890; iv. 799. '3 3/g'„^_ Melastom. (Geneve, 1830, 4to). 



^ Gen. 328, Ord. 8. ^* Gen. 1205, Ord. 268 ; Fnc/nrid. 648. 



