1900.] G. King — Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 83 



numerous, crowded, 2-3-flowered umbellules with a semi-circular bract 

 at the bases of their short, stout, 4-angled peduncles. Flowers with 

 conical buds, less than *1 in. in diain., on slender pedicels longer than 

 themselves, bracteolate at their bases. Calyx hemispheric ; the mouth 

 truncate, entire. Fruit ovoid-elliptic, crowned by the short calyx-limb, 

 •4 long and *25 in. in diam. Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. I, pt. I, 579 (excl. syn.) ; 

 Cogn. in DO. Mon. Phan. VII, 1150. M. Horsfieldii, Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. 

 I, pt. I, 572. M. grande, Retz, var. Horsfieldii, Clarke in Hook. fil. Fl. 

 Br. Ind. II, 558; Cogn. in DC. Mon. Phan. VII, 1153 (excl. syn. 

 M. celastrinum, Kurz from both). M. lampongum, Miq. Fl. Ind. Bat. 

 Suppl. 321. 



Malacca; Maingay (Kew Distrib.) 811. Singapore; Ridley 6414. 

 Perak; Scortechini 2069 ; King's Collector 426, 5187, 4420, 4439, 8571. 

 Distrib. Bangka; Horsfield ; Sumatra; Forbes 3213. 



This has been treated by Messrs. Clarke and Cogniaux as a variety of If. grande 

 of Retz, a species originally described by its author from specimens sent to him by 

 Koenig, who collected in Southern India. Retz's description is very short and, as 

 Mr. Clarke points out, would suit several species. The species of Memecylon have 

 not, as a rule, a wide distribution, and very few indeed of them are common to 

 S. India or Ceylon and to the Malay Peninsula. I think it, therefore, in the absence 

 of his type specimen, advisable to consider Retz's name as properly belonging to 

 the Ceylon plant represented by Thwaites's C.P. 3442. Both Messrs. Clarke and 

 Cogniaux treat as belonging to typical M. grande, Retz, the Singapore plant issued by 

 Wallich as No. 4472 of his Catalogue under the name M. laxiflorum. This plant is 

 now represented only by fruiting specimens which do not, in my opinion agree with 

 any other Memecylon in Herb. Kew. The inflorescence in Wallich' s specimens is 

 2*5 in. long, pedunculate, and laxly compound-umbellate. When flowers shall be 

 forthcoming it will probably be found necessary to let the species M. laxiflorum 

 stand good. 



Thwaites's C.P. which I assume, in the absence of a type specimen, to be equal 

 to the type of M. grande, Retz, does not in my opinion resemble the four forms 

 which the two distinguished botanists just mentioned agree in treating as varieties 

 of it, sufficiently closely to warrant such treatment of the latter. I would venture 

 to dispose of them as follows : — 



Var. Horsfieldii = M. oleaefolium, Bl. Var. khasiana = M. celastrinum, Kurz a 



Var. pubescens =M. pnbescens, King. Var. merguica = M. merguica, King. 



M. Cogniaux has inadvertently described the fruit of M. oleaefolium as globose, 

 whereas in his original description of it Blume writes " fructibus ellipsoideis." 



22. Memecylon pauciflorum, Blume, Mus. Bot. I, 356. A small 

 tree ; young branches 4-angled, slender, pale-brown. Leaves coriaceous, 

 rhomboid or elliptic-rhomboid, drying brown, the lower surface paler, 

 the apex blunt and often retuse, the base acute or subacute ; nerves 6 

 or 7 pairs, invisible or very faint; length 1-1-5 in.; breadth *35-l in. ; 

 petiole under 1 in. Cymes umbellate, axillary, on slender peduncles # l-'2 

 in. lono*; flowers 7-10, small, on slender pedicels bracteolate at the base 



