Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 81 



Order LXVII. MONOTROPEiE. 



[By D. Peain.] 



Leafless, erect, white or coloured root-parasites ; stems herbaceous, 

 scaly, simple or forked. Flowers solitary on the stem or branches, 

 regular, hermaphrodite. Sepals usually resembling the scales, 2 to 6, 

 often deciduous. Petals 3 to 6. Stamens 6 to 12, hypogynous, 2-seriate ; 

 filaments filiform or flattened ; anthers 2-celled, or by confluence 

 1-celled. Ovary superior, globose or fusiform, 1- to 6-celled ; style 

 cylindric, stigma peltate ; ovules very many on axial or parietal 

 placentas. Fruit capsular, loculicidally 4' to 6-valved, or indehiscent 

 and baccate. Seeds very many, minute ; testa often loosely saccate ; 

 embryo very minute, solid. — Disteib. Genera 9, in dense woods, 

 mostly in temperate regions, all in the northern hemisphere. 



1. Cheilotheca, Hook. fil. 



Small herbs, with erect, simple or forked, white or coloured stems ; 

 branches 1-flowered. Sepals 3 to 5, narrowly oblong like the upper- 

 most stem-scales. Petals 3, erect, obtuse. Stamens 6 ; anthers linear, 

 cells 2, confluent at the apex, dehiscing by marginal slits or pores. 

 Ovary fusiform, 1-celled, narrowed into the cylindric style ; stigma 

 globose-conic, usually slightly lobed ; placentas 6, parietal, 2-fid, the 

 segments covered throughout by numerous ovules. Fruit fleshy, inde- 

 hiscent, baccate. — Distkib. Species 2, Indo-Chinese and Malayan. 



1. Cheilotheca malayana, Scort. in Hook. fil. Icon. Plant., XYI. 

 t, 1564. A root-parasite in dense forest ; stem herbaceous, erect, 

 simple or 2- to 3-forked, 6 to 9 in. high, stoutish. Scales ovate-oblong, 

 obtuse, imbricated, gradually increasing upwards, lurid purple {Scortc- 

 cliini) or waxy white {Kunstler). Flowers terminal on stem and 

 branches, 1 in. long, hidden inside the uppermost scales, and bright 

 yellow [Kunstler), or with the tips of the petals exserted and white 

 (Scortechini). Sepals 5, resembling the uppermost scales, imbricate, 

 linear-oblong, obtuse or sub-acute, glabrous. Petals 3, rather larger 

 than the sepals, rounded-cucullate at the apex, externally glabrous, 

 internally more or less pilose. Stamens 6, filaments puberulous or 

 pilose, alternately somewhat shorter and longer ; anthers short, innate, 

 hippocrepiform, cells confluent at apex, dehiscing by marginal pores. 

 Ovary narrowly fusiform ; stigma obscurely 4-lobed ; placentas 6, 

 parietal. Fruit white, fleshy, baccate, '75 in, across, tipped by the 

 persistent remains of the stout style. Prain in Journ. As. Soc. Beng. 

 LXXIII. 2, 205. 



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