THE BOTANY OF CHRISTMAS ISLAND. 185 



much more glabrous habit. I have a somewhat similar 

 form from New Guinea. 



Cissus pedata Lam. is distributed over India, Siam and Java 

 but appears to be quite absent from the Malay Penin- 

 sula. Fruit as large as a pea, pink ; flowers green 

 fertilized by Polistes Balder Kirb. 



Leea sambucina var intermedia. 



A tree or large shrub 20 feet or more tall, young 

 stems smooth glabrous green fluted, internodes one 

 foot long, sprinkled over with scattered thorns, adult 

 stems thornless covered with a red, scaly bark. Leaves 

 12 inches or more long, leaflets oblong lanceolate 

 acute crenulate 3 inches long 1^ inch wide, glabrous 

 except for a tuft of reddish hair in the axils of the 

 nerves on the back. Cymes 3 inches long with tufts of 

 hair in the axils, and the ultimate branches pubescent. 

 Bracts lanceolate acute or subacute. Flowers green, 

 calyx cupshaped with 5 short testh, pubescent. Petals 

 5 lanceolate subacute hooded at the tip glabrous 

 staminal tube very short and toothed. Fruit globose 

 grey green ^ inch through when dry, 4 seeded. 



This plant is common all over the island, but 

 especially on Phosphate hill, Flying Fish Cove, etc. 

 It is rarer or absent on the Plateau. 



It has been referred to the common Malayan species 

 L. sambucina and also to L. horrida Teysm. It is 

 however not typically either species, but rather inter- 

 mediate between the two. In general it resembles L. 

 sambucina except for its much greater size, smaller 

 corymbs and leaves with tufts of hair in the nerve 

 axils and the presence of distinct thorns on the young 

 stems. In these points it approaches L. horrida, which 

 however is much more thorny the thorns being per- 

 sistent and occurring on the branches, and which does not 

 possess the axillary hairs of the nerves of the leaf. 



E. A, Soc, No. 45, 1905. 



