66 
Descriptive Notes on Papuan Plants. 
COMBRETACE^. 
COMBRETUM GoLDIEANTJM. 
Leaves large, oval, almost blunt or but slightly acuminated, quite 
glabrous; spikes axillary, solitary, one-sided; flowers large; calyx 
imperfectly grey-silky, with 5 very short teeth ; petals 5, silky-downy 
outside ; stamens ten^ long^ crimson ,* anthers ellipsoid ; young fruit 
slender, 5-anguled. 
JN^ear Port Moresby; Goldie, 
Branchlets very soon glabrous, hardly angular or quite terete. Leaves 
opposite, 4-0 inches long, 2-3 inches broad, prominently ribbed, finely 
veined, minutely and transparently dotted. Petioles -J-1 inch long. 
Spikes on very short stalks, 2-4 inclies long, with numerous flowers. 
Calyx at the time of flowering about \ an inch long, above the ovary 
gradually dilated, the deciduous portion inside towards the middle silky- 
bearded. Petals oblong-lanceolar, scarcely exceeding one line in length. 
Filaments about § of an inch long. Anthers dark-red, a line long. 
Style crimson, measuring nearly an inch in length. Ripe fruit as yet 
unknown. 
The leaves of this elegant species are much like those of C. latifolium 
(Bl. Bijdr. 641), while the color of the stamens is that of C. coccineum 
(Lara. Diction, i. p. 734) and the length of the filaments that of C. 
micropetalum (Gaud. Prodr. iii, 19). 
Among red-flowered species this new one differs from C. coccineum 
already by broader leaves, not glabrous spikes, longer not suddenly 
campanulate calyx, smaller petals, longer stamens and not obcordate 
anthers ; from C. grandiflorum (G. Don in Edinb. Phil. Journ. 1824, p. 
347) in longer leafstalks, smaller and fugacious bracts, elongated spikes 
with smaller flo\vers, long exserted stamens, narrow not yellow anthers; 
from C. comosum (G. Don in the Transact, of the Linnean Society, xv. 
433) in larger leaves, disposition of flowers, slender limb of calyx and 
smaller petals. 
The only other combretaccous plant, as yet knowm from New Guinea, 
is Lumnitzera racemosa, Willdenow in den Verhandlungen der natur- 
forsclienden Freunde zu Berlin, iv. 186. 
The flowers bring to our recollection both Metrosideros and Callis- 
temon, whereas the very copious minute dots of the leaves point also to 
some affinity of Combretacem to Myrtacem. 
