MELASTOMACEi!. 599 



leaf. In consistence the leaves appear to have been a little fleshy, 

 but thin. The inflorescence is developed from the leafless nodes of 

 older branches, in the form of an ample panicle, composed of drooping 

 elongated racemes, which attain the length of a foot or more; their 

 closely approximate nodes each adorned with a pair, or more com- 

 monly a whorl of 3 or 4 obovate and petaloid (white) bracts. These 

 are sessile, and persistent for some time after flowering on the nodose 

 rhachis, half an inch long, about the length of the pedicels ; which 

 are not articulated in the middle. Flower subtended by a pair or 

 whorl of bracilets resembling the bracts, but smaller and rounder, about 

 the length of the calyx and embracing it. Calyx nearly 3 lines long, 

 tinged with violet-colour, urceolate, the tube somewhat quadrangular; 

 the limb membranaceous, with a truncate, entire, at length repandly 

 sinuate or obscurely four-lobed margin, externally marked with 4 

 small callosities. Petals 4, nearly 3 lines long, obovate-cuneiform, 

 somewhat inequilateral, retuse, and with a minute glandular tip, 

 rose-colour. Stamens 8, equal : filaments slender : anthers subulate, 

 rose-coloured, minutely three-spurred at the base; that is, the connec- 

 tive bearing 2 (yellow) assurgent spur-like processes anteriorly, and 

 one posteriorly, which is similar but decurved. Style filiform; 

 stigma minute, punctiform. Ovary wholly adherent to the calyx- 

 tube, surmounted by a cup-shaped membranous disk, which surrounds 

 the base of the style, four-celled ; the thick axile placentas covered 

 with innumerable ovules. Berry globular-ovoid, a quarter of an inch 

 in diameter, many-seeded, purple? Seeds semi-obovoid, with the 

 inner face concave, or helmet-shaped ; the rhaphe large and project- 

 ing. Embryo somewhat oblique. 



A striking and very distinct species, remarkable as well for its long 

 racemes, conspicuously adorned with white bracts, as for the great 

 inequality of the leaves. Its inflorescence would seem to resemble 

 that of Dactyliota, Blume ; a genus which perhaps should be reunited 

 to Medinilla. 



Plate 75. — Medinilla heterophtlla : a branch, of the natural 

 size. Fig. 1. A flower, with its bractlets. 2. Vertical section of an 

 unexpanded flower. 3. Calyx. 4. A petal. 5, 6. Stamens. 7. A 

 fruit. 8. Transverse section of the same. 9, 10. Seeds. 11. Ver- 

 tical section of a seed. — The details magnified. 



