(570 
till. ME)LAST0MACEJL 
[Melastomd. 
top in a single pore, very unequal, 5 larger, with the connective produced below 
into a long appendage incurved and 2-lobed or 2-pointed at the lower end, 
o smaller, with the appendage shorter or wanting. Ovary 5 or rarely 6-celled, 
crowned with a few stiff hairs or bristles. Fruit truncate after the fall of the 
calyx-lobes, the capsule or berry more or less succulent or pulpy and bursting 
irregularly. Seeds cochleate. — Shrubs, more or less strigose or hairy. Leaves 
usually ovate, 3 or more-nerved. Flowers terminal, solitary or few together in 
cymes, often large and showy ; the calyx usually covered with bristles or scales. 
A considerable genus, extending over tropical Asia and the Pacific Islands. The only 
Australian species is a common one in India and the Archipelago. 
1. IVI. malabathricum (Malabar plant), Linn. Spue. PI. 559, var. poly- 
anthum : Benth. FI. Auntr. iii. 292. A shrub of a few feet in height, more or less 
clothed with hairs or bristles, often very rigid and scale-like on the branches, 
rigid and strigose on the upper side of the leaves, longer and softer on the under 
side, but sometimes nearly all rigid and scale-like, or nearly all long and soft. 
Leaves petiolate, from ovate almost cordate and Gin. long, to oblong-lanceolate 
and Sin. long, with :i or 5 nerves besides a fine intramarginal one. Flowers 
usually about 5 to 11 in terminal almost sessile cymes. Bracts very deciduous, 
from large and broadly ovate to small and narrow-lanceolate. Calyx-tube ovoid- 
globular, 2 to 3 lines long, densely covered with appressed chaffy scales or 
bristles; lobes usually 5, from ovate to lanceolate, more or less acuminate, longer 
and sometimes much longer than the tube or rarely rather shorter, alternating 
with 5 small subulate or short chaffy scales or accessory lobes. Petals large, pale- 
purple or white. Fruit nearly globular, 3 to nearly 4 lines diameter. Seeds 
imbedded in a purple pulp. — .1/. poli/anthiiii i, Blume. Mus. Bot. i. 52 t. 6 ; M. 
<lenticidatum, Labili. Sert. Austr. Caled. i. 65 t. 64 ; M. Force- Hollandiai, Naud. in 
Ann. Sc Nat. ser. 3 xiii. 290. 
Hab. : Endeavour River, Brinks mid Solander , .1. Cunningham : Brisbane River, Moreton Bay, 
.1. Cunningham and others ; Mount Elliott, Dallachy : common in swamps. 
The typical 47. mulnbatliricum is usually distinguished by its larger flowers, with the bracts 
and calyx-lobes larger in proportion, but some of the Moreton Island specimens have them nearly 
as large as the Indian ones. Many Australian specimens correspond exactly either with 
those of 4/. polijanthum from the Archipelago, or with those of 47. denticulatum, from New 
Caledouia, and it is probable that the species should include the whole of the 24 adopted or 
proposed by Naudin, Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 4 xiii. 284 to 293, as “ Species magis ad 47. malabathricum 
vergentes ideoque diftieilius distinguendas,” besides several of the l; Species addendse,” p. 294, 
not seen by him. The characters are generally most trifling. — Bentli. 
4. MEDINILLA, Gaud. 
(After Lon Jose de Medinilla y Pineda, Governor of Marianne Islands.) 
Calyx-tube ovoid, campanulate, or cylindrical, limb truncate or obscurely 
toothed. Petals 4 or 5, usually acute, often fleshy. Stamens twice as many as 
petals, equal or nearly equal, rarely unequal ; anthers opening at the top by one 
pore ; connective not or very shortly produced at the base, but having two tuber- 
cles in front and a spur behind. Ovary inferior, 4 to 6-celled, usually glabrous at 
the apex ; style filiform ; ovules very many, placentas axile. Berry areolate at 
the top or crowned by the limb of the calyx. Seeds minute, very many, ovoid or 
sub-falcate, raphe often thickened and excurrent. — Branching shrubs, erect or 
scandent. Leaves opposite or wliorled, entire, often fleshy, with 3 to 9 longi- 
tudinal nerves. Flowers in terminal panicles or lateral cymes, white or rose, 
with or without bracts, 4 or 5 rarely 6-merous. 
The species, which are about 50, are met with in Malaya, East India, Ceylon, Fiji, and tropical 
Africa. 
1. IVI. Balls-Headleyi (after Dr. Walter Balls-Headley, M.A.), F. r. M. 
Auntr. Journ. of Plutrw., April 1887. Climbing, glabrous ; leaves quaternary in 
whorls, ovate or elliptic-lanceolate, longitudinally 3-uerved from near the base ; 
