THE BURMANNIACE# OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. — 333 
about half an inch long, with very distinct wings. The sepals 
are fleshy, linear lanceolate. The petals nearly as large, blunt. 
The stamens are sessile at the base of the petals with a very 
distinct bilobed dentate crest. The anther cells far apart, rent- 
form. The style rather stout, the three stigmas fairly large. 
The ovary is very large in proportion to the size of the flower, 
a good deal longer than the style. 
This is a widely distributed plant in the Tropics of Asia, 
occurring in mountainous districts from Nepaul throughout 
India to Ceylon, Sumatra and China and Australia. At present 
it has only been gathered on Mount Ophir in the Malay Penin- 
sula, but it will certainly be found in other of our mountain 
regions. 
B. CG&LESTIS (Don.) is a very widely distributed little an- 
nual. It is very common in grassy spots along roadsides. I have 
seen great plenty of it along the road towards Pasir Panjang, 
and it is also very common in the turf in the Botanic Gardens. 
It is not, however, always to be met with, being an annual in 
the strict sense, that is, it only lives till it has flowered and 
fruited, and then immediately dies. In Europe, where the 
growing season is so short, it would probably be literally an 
annual, and Jive throughout the summer, dying down in au- 
tumn or winter as so many English plants do, but as there is 
really no time when plants cannot grow here, this little 
Dragon’s-scales appears whenever the weather suits it, lives a 
short life, of perhaps a month or two, and disappears again, 
[t generally appears after heavy rains when the weather begins 
to get finer, and then the ground is often dotted all over with it. 
The whole plant is about three to four inches tall, some- 
times as much as six inches, often, in poor soil, much smaller. 
It has a simple slender stem with a-tuft of narrow point- 
ed leaves at the base, and one, more rarely two, and still 
more rarely three or more flowers, about half an inch long at 
the top. These flowers have the typical Burmannia shape, 
that is to say, they are urn-shaped with three thin wings 
running for the whole of the length. At the top are three little 
sepals, and alternating with these three minute petals. he 
stamens and pistil are quite hiddenintheurn. ‘The flower is of 
an exquisite lilac-blue, with yellow sepals. The stamens are 
