PLANTS OF PRINCE OF WALES ISLAND. Ill 



Boonga Chappa, Malay. " Leaves lanceolate, tomentose 

 below ; petioles also toothed. 



Stem shrubby, six or seven feet in height. Branches 

 round, striated, pithy, downy. Leaves scattered, ovate lanced, 

 unequally serrated ; above rough, below tomentose, spreading. 

 Petioles very short, tomentose, furnished with one or two 

 teeth on each side. Stipules none. Panicles axillary and 

 terminal, diffuse ; peduncle common, rigid, erect, from two to 

 four cleft ; partial like the common. Bracts at the divisions 

 of the peduncles, solitary, lanceolate. Flowers pedicelled, 

 cylindric, yellow. Calyx perianth common, imbricated, cylin- 

 drical ; with scales lanceolate, erect ; proper none. Corolla com- 

 pound, tubular. Corollets, hermaphrodite, numerous, tubular, 

 in the disc ; female numerous, similar, in the circumference. 

 Proper, of the hermaphrodites funnel-shape, the limb five cleft, 

 patulous, segments lanceolate : of the females tube thread form 

 more slender, limb three cleft. Stamens of the hermaphrodites, 

 filaments five, capillary, from the middle of the tube, anthers 

 united into a cylinder, longer than the corol. In the female 

 none. Pistil germ oblong. Style thread form ; Stigmas two, 

 simple; in the hermaphrodites hid within the cylinder of an- 

 thers ; in the female projecting beyond the limb of the corol, 

 spreading. Pericarp : none. Seeds : oblong, striated ; pappus 

 hairy. Eecept : naked, flat. 



The leaves possess the exact taste and smell of the com- 

 mon officinal sage, and are used in the same manner for 

 culinary purposes. The Malay physicians give an infusion 

 of them in boiling water as a stomachic and carminative. 

 Loureiro and Eumphius speak highly of its virtues. 



It was given in a dropsical affection which broke out 

 among the Polygars confined in irons on the Island." This 

 disease resembled that which attacked His Majesty's 80th 

 Eegiment at Trincomalay, and the Lascars on board of several 

 ships on their voyage from England. In the present instance 

 it proceeded from despondency, want of exercise and a damp 

 situation. The patients had the infusion to drink, and the 



♦(Was this Beri-beri) ? 

 R f A. Soc, No. 53, 1909. 



