1896.] G-. King — Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 455 



obovate. Stamens included, the filaments clavate, the anthers short 

 with broad connective. Fruit solitary or paired, compressed, obliquely 

 orbicular or elliptic, '5 in. long. Hook. fil. and Thorns. Fl. Ind. I, 210 ; 

 Hook. fil. Fl. Br. Ind. II, 3. Gelastrina, Wall. Cat. 9015; Sabia sp. 

 Griff. Notul. IV, 423; Ic. PI. As. t. 568. p. 2. 



Penang : Curtis, Nos. 1221, 2158. Perak : Scortechini, No. 628.— 

 Distkib. British India at the base of the Eastern Himalayan and 

 Assam Range, Chittagong. 



Sabia viridissima, Kurz in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, Vol. XLT, Pt. 2, (1872), 

 p. 304, is, as Kurz's type specimens in the Calcutta Herbarium clearly prove, a 

 mixture of Erythropalum scandens, Blume, and an undescribed species of Blachia 

 which I propose to name B. viridissima. 



2. Meliosma, Blume. 



Trees or shrubs, pubescent or glabrous. Leaves simple or unequally 

 pinnate ; leaflets sub-opposite, the terminal one rarely wanting. Flowers 

 in branched terminal or terminal and axillary panicles, small or minute, 

 hermaphrodite, rarely unisexual ; bracts caducous. Bracteoles and sepals 

 5-9, persistent, forming an uninterrupted whorl round the petals. Petals 

 5 ; 3 large, nearly orbicular, valvate ; 2 smaller, interior, placed behind 

 the fertile stamens, either membranous and nearly free or reduced to a 

 bifid scale adnate to the filament. Stamens 5 ; 2 fertile, opposite the 

 smaller petals ; filament short, flattened, incurved, expanded at the top 

 into a cup which bears two globose cells that burst transversely, spring- 

 ing back elastically ; 3 deformed, broad, opposite the larger petals, 

 2-fid with 2 empty cells, together forming a cup over the pistil. 

 DisG cupular or annular, with 2-5 simple or dentate teeth. Ovary 

 sessile, 2- rarely 3-celled, contracted into a simple or 2-partible style, 

 stigma simple ; ovules 2 in each cell. Drupe small, oblique, sub-globose ; 

 stone crustaceous, 1 -celled, with usually a basilar rounded projection 

 over which the seed is curved. Seed globose, testa membranous ; 

 cotyledons conduplicate, radicle incurved. — Distkib. Species about 32 ; 

 natives of Tropical Asia and Malay Archipelago, with a few in S. 

 America. 



Leaves simple. 



Petals 5 ; flowers "05 in. in diam. ... ... 1. M. elliptica. 



Petals 0; flowers '1 in. in diam. ... ... 2. M.lancifolia. 



Leaves pinnate. 



Leaflets quite glabrous. 



A shrub ; leaves 12 to 18 in. long; leaflets 7 to 



13 ; main nerves 7 to 10 pairs ... ... 3. M. nitida. 



A tree ; leaves 30 to 40 in. long ; leaflets 21 to 



25 ; main nerves 14 to 16 pairs ... ... 4. M. levis. 



