Descriptions of Malayan Plants. 323 



A shrub with round branches powdered as it were with 

 small dots. Leaves opposite, petiolate, ovate, subcordate, 

 acuminate, four or five inches long, five-nerved, entire, 

 smooth above, sprinkled with small dots beneath. Petioles 

 short. Flowers oppositely panicled, axillary and terminal, 

 white. Bracts small, acute. Calyx nearly smooth, four-sided, 

 limb obscurely four-lobed. Corolla four-petalled, petals 

 oblong, obtuse. Stamina eight, equal ; filaments with two 

 bristles at the top ; anthers curved, beaked, opening by a pore, 

 attached to the filaments a little above the base on the inside, 

 and before expansion turned downwards, so as to have their 

 faces closely applied to the filaments. Ovary connected to 

 the calyx by eight septa or partitions, four-celled, polyspo- 

 rous. Style nearly as long as the stamina. Berry four-cel- 

 led, many-seeded. 



Obs. — The insertion of the filaments is here somewhat 

 different from what is usual in this genus, bein^, as it were, 

 articulate a little above the base of the anther, and there 

 forming a hinge on which the anther moves. This structure 

 becomes still more singular in the following species, where 

 the filament is inserted nearly as high as the middle of the 

 anther, and is adnate to it from thence as far as the base, 

 being thus recurved upon itself when the anther comes into 

 the erect position. The two species are nearly related, being 

 principally distinguished by the number of the stamina, which 

 are only four in the latter. 



11. MELASTOMA FALLAX. (W. J.) 



M. tetrandra, paniculis terminalibus, foliis ovatis quinque- 

 nerviis subtus tomentosis, antheris erectis infra medium affixis. 

 Native of Sumatra. 



A shrub with long rather compressed tomentose branches. 

 Leaves opposite, petiolate, ovate, cordate at the base, acu- 

 minate, four or five inches long, entire, five-nerved, smooth 

 above, tomentose and ferruginous beneath. Petioles about 



