Descriptions of Malayan Plants. 325 



Sedudu akar. Malay, 

 Sumatra. 



A shrub. Branches compressed, nearly smooth. Leaves 

 opposite, petiolate, ovate or lanceolate-ovate, rounded at the 

 base, very acuminate, four-inches long, smooth, dotted with 

 minute tubercles above, three-nerved, with a less distinct 

 marginal pair, the transverse veins conspicuous. Petioles 

 short, slender. Panicle terminal, oppositely branched, pe- 

 duncles and pedicels slender, thickened at their joints. 

 Bracts linear. Calyx ovate, smooth ; limb absolutely four- 

 lobed, persistent. Corolla bluish-white, four-petalled. Sta- 

 mina eight, the alternate ones considerably smaller ; anthers 

 nearly straight, without beaks, furnished at the base with 

 two long Hnear flat appendices or awns ; their points before 

 expansion only reaching to the top of the ovary. Ovary 

 adnate to the calyx, four-celled, polyspermous ; placentae 

 from the inner angles. Style simple, erect. Berry globose, 

 smooth, rather dry, four-celled, many-seeded. 



Obs, — This is a slender, delicate, small-flowered species, 

 having considerable resemblance to the following. The al- 

 ternate stamina are here very small, so as almost to appear 

 abortive ; but the form and structure of all the anthers and 

 their appendages are precisely the same. In the first divi- 

 sion of the Melastomce, the inequality of the stamina is occa- 

 sioned by the dissimilar structure of the alternate anthers ; 

 in the second, whatever difference may occur in their rela- 

 tive lengths, their structure is precisely alike. No ambiguity 

 can therefore be occasioned by such an inequality as exists 

 in this species, were even its real affinities less strongly 

 expressed in its general habit and secondary characters. 



13. MELASTOMA GLAUCA. (W. J.) 

 M. tetrandra, paniculis terminalibus glaucis, foliis quin- 

 quenerviis acuminatis basi cordatis glabriusculis. 



