PR PORE Oi ee Pak epi SN AR RE A gees 
Eh 5 Oi dae ae 
Pp a ae em See ee am ne ees 
, es rf + wee ve ee vs 7 Ea set 
merous, consp’ 
long scaly  petincale: forming by 3 to 
Melastoma. | MELASTOMACER. 503 
MELASTOMA, L. 
Calyx clothed with bristles or scales, the tube bell-shaped or 
ovoid; lobes 5, rarely 6 or 7, deciduous, alternating with as many 
inconspicuous accessory lobes or teeth. Petals usually 5. Stamens 
twice as many as calyx-lobes ; anthers linear-subulate, opening by 
a single apical pore, very unequal, 5 larger with the connective 
produced below in a long appendage, incurved and 2-lobed or 2- 
pointed at the insertion of the curved filaments, and 5 smaller with 
— ane appendage shorter or wanting. Ovary ovoid, free, or 
or less adnate, 5- rarely 6- or 7 sodied, the apex appressed 
brit style filiform with an obtuse stigma. Fruiting calyx-tube 
neate after the fall of the lobes, more or less adnate to the more 
or 8 succulent and pulpy irr irregularly bursting - 
minute, cochleate——Shrubs or little trees, with 3- or more-nerved 
leaves. Flowers conspicuous, solitary, or forming poor terminal 
cymes. 
X Leaves more or less appressed bristly’ srg or pubescent. 
+ Calyx srr with closely appressed, chaffy, ‘scale- 
like brist 
Seales of calyx about 4 fin. long or longer, often rather beter 
calycine lobes shorter, often only half as long as the 
tube ; leaves usually acute and appressed bristly on both ai siaes M. malabathricum. 
— of calyx up to a line long, -chaffy, ciliate or finely cleft ; 
‘lobes about as ‘oe as the tube, eee the altornaé- 
oe teeth short and subulate; leaves .on both sides, or only 
beneath, appressed pubescent, acuminate - ‘ ioe HM. normale. 
‘Leaves softly appressed-pubescent on sides . M. Houtteanum. 
xX. .X Leaves = abou or cans with.a few scales onthe ribs 
ben 
Calyx covered with ie: a —— curved upwards ; 
= ee eeeminn : * M. decemfidum. 
ab aly from Rie Gs hs to.elliptically oblong, rounded or obtuse 
at the base, usually 5-nerved ay 2 ae nerves ae 
acute, 3 to 5 in. long, covered b y appressed hairs or bristles, which 
: Bs 
us, icuous, rose-coloured, purple or white, on 3 to 4 Im. 
— 
eymes.; bracts very deciduous, from large an and broadly ovate to 
‘small and ss a calyx-tube ovoid-globose, 2 to 3 lin. 
