MYRISTICA CORTICOSA. (Nat. order Myristicese.) 



-T or Gen. Char, see letter-press to PI. celxvii. 



MYRISTICA CORTICOSA. (Lour.) A very large greet handsome tree, young parts more or less downy often with a 

 very dense close set golden tomentum, leaves from membranaceous to coriaceous, glabrous above in age, glabrous and very glaucous 

 beneath or occasionally more or less aureo or rufo-pubescent especially on the costa, narrow-lanceolate to broad-lanceolate or rarely 

 oblong or ovate, acute or with a long tapering point or sometimes obtuse, 4-8 inches long by 1-3 broad, 16-20 primary veins 

 on each side prominent beneath, and somewhat conspicuous above but not impressed, intermediate parallel incomplete veins present or 

 absent, veinlets transversely reticulated conspicuous beneath, petioles 4-6 lines long channelled on the upper side, peduncles in both 

 sexes axillary or from the old axils, 1-4 lines long, 1-6 flowered in the male 1-3 flowered in the female, pedicels 2-4 lines long 

 rather more slender in the male than in the female bracteated above the middle and with the perianth densely aureo or rufo-tomentose, 

 perianth-lobes rather deep, veined, tube larger in the female, 3-4 parted. Male, antheriferous column dilated at its apex into a circular 

 11-13 toothed disk, on each tooth of which an anther is inserted on the underside ; female, ovary oval hairy, stigma large 2 lobed, 

 lobes somewhat lacerated, fruit oval densely downy about 1 \ inch long by f inch broad. — Knema corticosa, Lour. Fl. Cock. 742. 

 Myristica globularia, Lam. M. glauca, Bl. JBidj. 576 ; — Rumph. 1. 182 t. 60. M. lauceolaria, Wall. cat. 6742. M. missionls, 

 Wall- cat. 6788. M. angustifolia, Roxb. Fl. hid. iii. 847. 



A lofty very handsome tree, common in all our western moist forests up to 3000 feet elevation, from South Canara down to South 

 Trvancore, very abundant about the foot of the Nilgiris west side (near Nellicootah), and about the Tinnevelly ghats. Some of my S. Canara 

 specimens have the leaves quite ovate 5 inches long by 3 broad, but other forms run gradually into the narrow lanceolate shape which is most com- 

 mon ; the tree is also found in Birmah, from which country I have specimens quite corresponding to our Indian ones, and it inhabits the east 

 part of Bengal, the Malay Peninsula, Java, Borneo and Cochin China. 



Analysis. 



1. A branch of male tree iu flower (sometimes the leaves are very much broader and in rare cases they are ovate.) 



2. A 3-cleft male flower with an ll-cleft antheriferous disk, lobes of the perianth with nerves, densely stellato-pubescent on the 



outside- 



3. A 4-cleft male flower antheriferous disk 13-lobed. 



4. Underneath view of the autheriferous-disk and its column shewing that the anthers are placed, underneath the teeth of the 



disk dehiscing downwards. 



5. Anthers, upper and underneath view, the tooth of the disk being the connective. 



6. A male flower bud. 



7. A 4-cleft male perianth cut open, shewing its tube shorter than in the female. 



8. Branch of female tree in flower. 



9. A 3-cleft female flower tube longer than in the male. 



10. The same cut open, hairy ovary and bifid somewhat lacerated stigma. 



11. Ovary cut vertically. 



12. Fruit. 



13. The same burst, shewing the seed and its aril. (Drawn from living specimens.) 



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