526 Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 
7. PHYLLANTHUS, L. 
Herbs, shrubs or trees. Leaves varying much in size and shape 
alternate, reduced to minute scales on the primary branches, distich- 
ous on the branchlets, with entire lamine, penninerved, equilat- 
eral or inequilateral, shortly petioled, stipulate. Flowers usually 
monoecious, apetalous, discigerous, small, axillary, solitary or glom- 
erate or in minute glomeriform racemules ¢& calyx 4—6-partite, 
the sepals imbricate in 2 series, + ovate, entire or + fimbriate, 
disc rarely a narrow membranous lobed ring, usually of 4—6 minute, 
subreniform or amorphous scalelike glands alternate with the sepals, 
androecium of 2—5 stamens, the smaller number usually united in 
a short central column, the larger number free and + diverging 
or the inner 2—3 + connate by their filaments; anthers minute, 
ovate, sessile on the column and didymous or subhorizontal or basi- 
fixed and diverging with free filaments or connivent with connate 
filaments; connectives not or slightly or rarely moderately pro- 
duced; pistillode 0. 9 calyx with 5—7 sepals, often larger than 
the male but otherwise resembling it; disc of minute fleshy scales 
or a membranous crenulate or lobed ring or shallow cup; ovary 
subglobosely ovoid or turbinate, glabrous or + puberulous, 3-locular 
or (in two Malayan Peninsula species) 4—9-locular; ovules 2 in 
each loculus, collateral in the 3-locular ovaries, partially superposed 
in the 4—9-locular ovaries; styles as many as the loculi, simple in 
the 4—9-locular ovaries, bifid in the 3-locular ovaries, free or + 
connate. Fruit a small berry (in two species) or usually a sub- 
globose dry septitragally dehiscent 3-locular capsule, glabrous or + 
puberulous or echinate, small or moderately sized or rather large 
and inflated. Seeds triquetrous, varying much in size, with a 
convex dorsal and 2 ventro-lateral plane surfaces, granulate or 
minutely tubercled or striate or pitted or transversely or longitu- 
dinally ridged ; testa crustaceous ; albumen fleshy; cotyledons flat 
or flexuous._-Distris. About 400 species, throughout the tropics 
and subtropics. 
Even with Glochidion separated off, Phyllanthus still remains a somewhat 
mixed genus, and a re-elevation of some of its sections to generic rank would 
probably be an advantage. The scope of this account of the Malayan Penin- 
sula species dose not justify me in intrenching on the work of the monographer, 
and so here the genus as treated in ths Flora of British India has as regards 
its sections been left undisturbed. 
Hooker’s statement (Fl. Brit. Ind. V, 286) that the # flowers in the Emblica 
section have no disc requires qualification, as his own species P. pectinatus has 
