580 PHANEROGAM I A. 



spring from the base of the blade, or rarely from just within it; there 

 are a pair of more slender, somewhat wavy, intramarginal nerves, 

 which if counted make the leaf five-ribbed ; the petioles about an 

 inch and a half long. Cyme terminal, ample, corymbose, compound, 

 repeatedly trichotomous ; the divisions stout, somewhat quadrangular, 

 ferrugineous-pubescent ; the ultimate peduncles bearing numerous, capi- 

 tate-crowded,, sessile or nearly sessile flowers, forming together a very 

 compact inflorescence. Bracts caducous. Flower-buds, petals, sta- 

 mens and style not seen; the specimen being wholly in the fruiting 

 state. Fruiting calyx globular, rather depressed, and open at the top, 

 little produced beyond the flat summit of the ovary, the truncate margin 

 minutely and irregularly crenate-dentate into 8 or 10 rounded teeth ; 

 the surface sprinkled with reddish-brown, glandular dots. Capsule 

 depressed-globose, about 2 lines in diameter, three- or four-celled, with 

 a dilated clavate-semilunar strictly basilar placenta in each cell ; the 

 thin epicarp breaking away irregularly, the thin endocarp splitting 

 longitudinally into 6 or 8 valves and falling away, leaving 6 or 8 

 strong persistent nerves, surrounding the dilated placentae. Seeds 

 innumerable, thickly covering the placentae, subclavate, or dolabri- 

 form, angled by mutual pressure, with a brown lateral rhaphe. 



Compared with an authentic but imperfect specimen of A. macro- 

 phylla, Blume, and with Naudin's description, this species is well 

 marked by its very obtuse leaves, its dense and corymbose cyme, 

 with sessile and congested flowers, the many-toothed edge of the 

 calyx, the 3-4-celled ovary, and the thickish, angled (not acicular) 

 seeds. The leaves, moreover, are not distinctly triplinerved, as in 

 that species. 



4. ASTRONIA? SUBCORDATA, Sp. Nov. 



A J follis longe petiolatis ovalibus vel subovatis breviter acuminatw 

 obtusisve basi cordatis glabrae's triplinerviis ; petiolis ramulisque 

 junioribus cum cyma corymbosa ferrugineo-hirtis demum glabratis. 



Hab. Upolu, one of the Samoan or Navigators' Islands : in the 

 mountains near Apia. 



The specimens, apparently of a tree or large shrub, have shed the 



