A NEW HONG-KONG MELASTOMACEA. 47 
which the few known species* are met with in Burma, the 
Malayan Archipelago, the Philippines, and Eastern Tropical 
Australia. It is very distinct from all heretofore described, 
especially in its indumentum; but, on account of its fruit being, 
1e flowers are sometimes, though rarely, tetramerous, 
and the cells of the ovary, as depicted by Blume in 0. moluccana,§ 
are surrounded by double their number of large cavities, which in 
the present plant are nearly twice the size of the cells themselves. 
llowing diagnosis is drawn up from excellent materials, 
communicated by the discoverer of this interesting plant, to whom 
I have great pleasure in dedicating it :— 
denticulatis utrinque opaci sparsim hirtellis sub lente 
unctis impressis minutissimis confertissime nsitis subtus 
pallentibus pilis glandulosis creberrimis tectis erviis nervis 
14 linealibus persistentibus, petalis orbiculari-ovatis acuminatis 
roseis 4 lin. longis, filamentis quam petala duplo brevioribus, 
antheris arcuatis subulatis basi antice 2- postice 1-calcaratis 
calcaribus parvis obtusis patentibus, stylo ad medium ant erarum 
adtingente, capsula crustacea glabra, vertice dehiscente, seminibus 
minimis pallide brunneis. : 
In fruticetis ins. Hong-Kong, mense Julio 1880, collegit 
C. Ford. (Herb. propr. n. 21099.) 
There is considerable discrepancy in the number recorded by different 
Blume (Mus. bot. Lugd.-Bat. i., 56) gives four, Naudin (Ann. Se. 
at. 3e sér. xiii., 352) five, Miquel (Fl. Ind. bat. i., 1, 515) six, Bentham and 
er i 
_| Les genres Melastoma et Otanthera font exception dans le groupe des 
Mélastomees & graines courbées en limacon, par leur fruit pulpeux. (Triana, in 
Trans. Linn, Soc., xxviii., 164 
§ Mus. bot. Lugd.-Bat. i., t. 20. 
