324! Descriptions of Malayan Plants. 



half an inch in length. Panicles terminal, erect, many-flow- 

 ered; divisions opposite. Bracts small, acute at the base 

 of the flowers, opposite. Calyx adnate to the ovary, four- 

 sided, contracted at the mouth ; limb spreading, almost 

 entire, four-cornered. Corolla white, four-petalled ; petals 

 subrotund, inserted on the calyx. Stamina four, filaments 

 erect, expanded into a membrane at the summit, which is 

 adnate to the anther from near their middle to their base ; 

 anthers thick, corrugated, nearly straight, without appen- 

 dices at the base, beaked, opening by a pore at top, at- 

 tached by their anterior faces to the filaments a little below 

 the middle. Before flowering the anthers are doubled down- 

 wards upon the filaments, so as to have the appearance of 

 being pendulous ; by the extrication of their beaks, how- 

 ever, the upper part of the filament is reflexed, and the 

 point of insertion, which before expansion was posterior, 

 becomes anterior. Ovary adnate to the calyx without con- 

 necting septa or cells, the beaks of the anthers not reaching 

 so low ; four-celled, polysporous, placentae from the inner 

 angles. Style erect, as long as the stamina. Berry ovate, 

 four-celled, many-seeded. 



Obs. — Besides being tetrandrous, this species is remarka- 

 ble for the unusual mode of attachment of the anthers to the 

 filaments, of which a partial example is afforded in the pre- 

 ceding. There is a strong resemblance between the two in 

 habit as well as in this particular. Here we have the ovary 

 completely adnate to the calyx, while in the preceding the an- 

 thers reach lower down^ and are therefore lodged in cells be- 

 twixt them ; but the two species are too nearly related in all 

 other respects to admit of being separated on this account. 



12. MELASTOMA GRACILIS. (W, J,J 



M. octandra, staminibus alternis nanis, paniculis termina- 

 libus gracilibus, foliis ovatis acuminatis glabris trinerviis, 

 ramis compressis. 



