Memecylon.] melastomace^. 117 



6. MEMECYLON, Linn. 



Calyx-tube hemispherical or campanulate ; the limb entire or obtusely 4- 

 lobed, or rarely 5-lobed. Petals 4 or rarely 5, ovate or orbicular. Stamens 

 twice as many, all similar, Anthers short, with a thick connective, forming 

 a conical spur at the base. Ovary entirely adnate to the calyx, 1-celled. 

 Ovules attached to a central placenta. Pruit a berry, crowned by the calyx- 

 teeth or border. Seeds solitary or rarely 3 or 3, with convolute cotyledons. 

 — ^^Trees or shrubs. Leaves coriaceous, with 1 prominent midrib, and pinnate 

 veins often scarcely perceptible. Mowers usually small, in axillary clusters 

 or cymes. 



A cousideiable genus,, spread over the tropical regions of the Old World. 



1. M. ligustrifolium, Champ, in Km Journ. Bot. iv. 117. A perfectly 

 glabrous shrub,- with slender branches. Leaves shortly stalked, elliptical, ob- 

 tuse or obtusely acuminate, 3 to 3 in. long and about 1 in. broad, acute at the 

 base, of a thick coriaceous consistence, the veins scarcely perceptible. Peduncles 

 axillary, 3 to B lines long, bearing a little cyme of 3 to 5 flowers. Buds, when 

 ready to open, globular, obtuse, nearly 2 lines diameter. Calyx-teeth 4, very 

 broad and short. Ovules 8 or 10, in a ring round the short central placenta. 

 Berry 4 or 5 lines diameter, with a single seed. — M. scutellatum, Hook, and 

 Am. Bot. Beech. 186, but not of Naudin. 



Honglfong, Champion. Also S. China, BeecTiey. The species is allied to the common 

 M. ovatum, Sm. {ovM. edule, Eoxb.), but the flowers are fewer and twice the size. It can- 

 not well retain the name of scutellatum, which should he reserved for the Scutula of Lpu- 

 reiro, formerly supposed by Hooker and Amott to be this species, but which appears to be 

 a different one, from Cochin China and not from Canton. Naudin has given the name of 

 M. ligustrinum to a different species, which I have not seen. 



Order XLII. MTRTACE^. 



Calyx- tube adhering to the ovary and often projecting above it; the limb 

 of 4 or 5 or rarely more lobes or teeth. Petals as many, inserted on the 

 calyic at the top of the tube, imbricate in the biid. Stamens usually indefi- 

 nite, sometimes twice as many or as many as the petals, curved inwards in 

 the bud, free or variously connected. Anthers small, 3-celled. Ovary in- 

 ferior, 3- to 5- or more celled, rarely 1-celled by incompleteness or failure of 

 the partitions. Ovules 3 or more in each cell or rarely solitary, the placentas 

 axile. Pruit dry or succulent, indehiscent or dehiscent. Seeds without al- 

 bumen. Embryo straight or curved. — Trees or shrubs. Leaves opposite or 

 rarely alternate, entire, almost always dotted. Flowers axillary or more rarely 

 terminal. 



A large Order, widely spread over South America, tropical and subtropical Africa and 

 Asia, and especially Australia, with a few South African, North American, and one European 

 species. 



Stamens 10 or 8. Leaves subulate, heath-like 1, Bjsokea. 



Stamens numerous. Leaves flat. 



Calyx-tube produced above the ovary, and lobed or toothed at the top. 



Calyx-tube shortly obovate . 2. Syzybium. 



