216 MELALEUCA CAJUPU^'I. 
while in young flowers, there is only a scaly cone at the apex, which 
soon advances into a leafy branchlet ; bracteas solitary, lanceo 
late, sericeous, three-flowered, caducous; flowers tern, sessile, 
small, white, inodorous ; calyx urceolate, semi-superior, sericeous, 
margin of five semi-lunar deciduous segments; petals five, orbicular, 
short-clawed, white, greatly longer than the segments of the calyx ; 
filaments from thirty to forty, united into five portions at the 
base, three or four times longer than the petals, and with them 
inserted into the large villous, five-lobed rim of the calyx, alternate, 
with its segments ; anthers ovate — cordate, with a yellow gland on 
the apex ; germen ovate, united to the calyx, three-celled ; with 
numerous ovula in each, attached to an elevated receptacle in the 
inner and lower angle of each cell ; style rather longer than the sta- 
mina ; stigma obscurely three-lobed ; capsule completely enveloped 
in the thick fleshy gibbous permanent tube of the permanent calyx, 
three-lobed, three-celled, three- valved ; valves thin, hard, and 
elastic, opening from the apex ; partitions contrary ; receptacles tri- 
angular, thin, flat, lodged in the inner and lower angle of the cell ; 
Seeds numerous, regularly wedge-shaped. 
This species of Melaleuca may be cultivated either by seed or 
root, when by the latter, slender pieces of the root are cut into small 
bits, and laid horizontally in the earth, (this is done in the rainy 
season) when they readily produce plants. 
The beautiful green essential oil of commerce, known by the name 
of cajuput oil, was supposed to be the produce of the Melaleuca 
Leucadendron ; but it appears from the specimens of the tree 
yielding the true Cajuputi, sent home by Mr. Christopher Smith, 
that the species is diff'erent, and referable to Table 17th of Rumphius's 
Herbarium Amboinense, (vol. ii.) and not to that author's Arbor 
Alba, 16, After a careful examination of specimens in Sir Joseph 
Bankes's, and other collections, by Dr. Maton, and in those of the 
Linneean Herbarium, by Dr. Smith, we are authorized to consider the 
tree which yields the above oil as a new species, and from the name 
of its medicinal product, those gentlemen have agreed to give it the 
appellation of Melaleuca Cajuputi.* 
* Hiis species of Melaleuca appears to Lave got its specific name from its colour, 
Cajuputi, or Kayu-puti, in the Malajf language, signifying white wood, and hence its 
appellation, as given to it by Rnmphius, Arbor Alba; it is also known in the Malay 
countries under the names of Galam, Dam, Kitsjil, &o. 
AinsUe, Materia Indica, toU U p< 261< 
