38 G. King — Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. [No. 1, 



lateral; connective prolonged, undivided, glabrous. Female calyx and 

 corolla as in the male ; ovary oblong, style long ; stigmas 3, subglobose ; 

 ovules many, horizontal ; placentas 3, vertical. Fruit indehiscent, 

 globose, acute or fusiform, subrostrate. Seeds many, small, oblong, 

 much compressed, obscurely margined, smooth or very nearly so. Dis- 

 trib. Species about 55, all tropical. 

 Fruit not beaked : — 



Fruit globular, glabrous ... ... ... 1. M. affinis. 



Fruit oblong, glabrous ... ... ... 2. M. indica. 



Fruit beaked : — 



Fruit fusiform, beaked, velvety ... ... ... 3. M. marginata. 



1. Melothria affinis, n. spec. King. Scandent ; the stem slender, 

 glabrous, 4-angled and deeply sulcate, not rooting at the nodes ; the 

 tendrils rather stout, bifid. Leaves ovate-cordate to triangular, often 

 3-5-lobed, the edges denticulate ; upper surface densely scabrid -hispid, 

 the hairs white; the lower paler and with hairs of the same colour 

 but sparser and more slender ; length 135-425 in., breadth 1 "5-3 25 in., 

 petiole "5-1 in. Male and female flowers often from the same axil ; 

 the males in many-flowered umbels on pedicels twice as long as the 

 leaf-petioles, pubescent below, glabrous above ; pedicels about 20, slender, 

 unequal, dilated at the apex, glabrous, '25-35 in. long. Flowers 1 in. 

 in diam., globose, pubescent, with 5 slender short diverging subulate 

 teeth below the mouth. Petals not seen ; anthers 3, straight, the conne- 

 tive not produced. Pedicel of the fruit shorter and stouter than the 

 peduncle of the male umbel, glabrous. Fruit globose, glabrous, thin- 

 walled, many-seeded, red when ripe, '4-5 in. in diam. ; seeds obovoid, 

 pitted, somewhat compressed, pale. 



Perak ; Scortechini 495 ; Wray 860, 1404; Curtis; King's Collector 

 1069, 2539. Borneo ; Bangermassing ; Motley 167. 



Mr. C. B. Clarke, who was so good as to examine my specimens of this species 

 and to compare them for me at Kew, assures me that the Perak specimens agree 

 exactly with Motley's 167. Mr. Clarke considers the species as closely allied to 

 M. marginata, Cogn. from which it differs by its globular glabrous fruit. 



2. Melothria indica, Lour. Flor. Coch. China, 35. Stem slender, 

 filiform, glabrous, 3-6 feet long, often rooting at the nodes, the tendrils 

 simple. Leaves triangular- cordate, acute, entire or 3-lobed (sometimes 

 deeply) ; the nerves somewhat hairy, otherwise glabrous, the lobes 

 irregularly denticulate or lobulate ; length 1*25-2 in. and breadth the 

 same, petiole '6-1 in. Male pedicels solitary or in racemes of 2 or 3 on 

 peduncles 1 in. long ; calyx-tube broadly campanulate, its teeth subu- 

 late, spreading ; corolla white, puberulous, its segments ovate-oblong. 

 Stamens with thick obconic filaments, glabrous or sparsely villose ; 

 anthers ovate-oblong, ciliate, the connective much produced. Peduncle 



