[Plate 18.] 



THE MAGNIFICENT MEDINILL. 



(medinilla magnifica.) 

 An Evergreen Stove Shrub from Java, belonging to the Natural Order of Melastomads. 



Specific Character. 



THE MAGNIFICENT MEDINILL.— An evergreen erect bush, perfectly smooth in every part, with compressed 

 four-winged branches, setose at the nodes. Leaves opposite, leathery, obovate-oblong, cordate, somewhat stem- 

 clasping, suddenly pointed, triple-nerved below the middle, and with pinnate ribs at the base. Pauicles terminal, 

 long, pendulous, with whorled branches. Bracts very large, bright rose-colour, in whorls of four, many-nerved, 

 deciduous. Flowers decandrous. 



Medinilla bracteata of the Gardens, but not of Blumc. 



THE genus Medinill, founded originally by M. Gaudichaud, upon a shrub from the 

 Marianne Islands, has become known in gardens by the introduction of the Showy 

 and the Red-leaved species (M. speciosa and erytlvrophylla) ; the former a plant of striking 

 beauty, the latter much less remarkable in appearance. These two may be taken as good 

 examples of the genus generally., some of which are among the handsomest shrubs of the 

 Malay Archipelago, while others would be passed by without notice. Many species have 

 been made known by Dr. Blume and other Dutch naturalists. They seem all to inhabit 

 the islands ot A^sia within the tropics, and to require a damp forest climate. Blume says 

 that he has seen some of them climbing up the trunks of trees to the height of from 60 to 

 80 feet. He adds that they have a mucilaginous bark, which, stripped of its epiderm, is 

 employed by the Malays for poultices, in dislocations and tumours, and that the subacid 

 leaves are, in Celebes, boiled with fish. 



The species now before us was imported from Java by Messrs. Veitch, and gained one 

 of the large medals of the Horticultural Society. By some error it was called Medinilla 

 bracleala, a name to which it has not the slightest claim; the plant once so called by 



