450 Contributions towards a Flora of Ceylon. 



Descr. — A dioecious tree, 16-20 feet high. Branches round, ash 

 coloured, warted, the younger ones pubescent. Leaves alternate, pe- 

 tiolate, ovate-oblong, varying to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, obtuse 

 at the base, entire or dentate-serrate, pennivenous, veins about six on 

 each side, green, shining, and minutely pubescent above, pale and 

 tomentose beneath, about 4 inches long, by about 20 lines broad. 

 Male flowers : Peduncles axillary, very short, often geminate. Pedi- 

 cels rather numerous, umbellate, about 4 lines long, pubescent. 

 Calyx deeply 5-7 parted, lobes lanceolate, acute, pubescent. Petals 

 none. Stamens numerous : filaments filiform, as long as the calycine 

 segments : anthers introrse, obtuse, 2-celled, dehiscing longitudi- 

 nally. Hypogynous disk none. Female flowers : Pedicels axil- 

 lary, solitary, or two or three together. Calyx 5-7 parted, lobes 

 ovate-lanceolate, acute, pubescent, persistent, about 3J- lines long. 

 Ovary sessile, free, surrounded at the base by a crenulated annular 

 disk, densely pilose-pubescent, subglobose, 1 -celled, with from 5-7 

 parietal placentae reaching nearly to the axis, which they ultimately 

 do in a more advanced stage. Ovules one on each side of each 

 placenta, anatropous. Styles 6-7, about 1^ lines long, divergent, 

 pilose-pubescent : stigma radiately fimbriated. Fruit a globose, 

 brownish- purple, many seeded berry, about an inch in diameter, 

 pubescent, crowned by the persistent styles. Seeds in an external and 

 internal series, those in the external one, somewhat triangular and 

 pendulous, those in the internal, ovate compressed, with their narrow 

 ends towards the axis, and suspended from a curved cord which pro- 

 ceeds from the base of the fruit, surrounded on their margins by a 

 pellucid wing consisting of agglutined fibrillae ; testa membranous, 

 villous. Embryo in the axis of thin fleshy albumen, orthotropous : 

 Cotyledons foliaceous, orbicular, cordate : radical terete, obtuse, di- 

 rected towards the hilum. 



Obs. — The only hitherto described species of Roumea is a 

 native of St. Domingo, in the West Indies, for the R. inermis 

 of DeCandolle from Bengal seems to belong to a very differ- 

 ent family. The present species is called Katambilla by the 

 Cingalese, and the fruit, which is very acid, is used by them 

 in their curries. 



