20 
No. 42. 
Scolopia Brownii, F.v.M. 
(Natural Order BIXACEvE.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Scolopia, Schreb. Gen. PL, No. 846 (1789). 
Flowers. —Hermaphrodite. 
Sepals. —4 to 6, slightly imbricate when very young, but open long before flowering. 
Petals. —As many and nearly similar. 
Stamens. —Indefinite, inserted on the thickened torus, with or without glands. 
Anthers. —Short, the connective terminating in a thick process. 
Ovary. —With 3 or 4 placentas and few ovules. 
Style. —Filiform, with an entire or lobed stigma. 
Fruit.- —A berry. Seeds 2 to 4, with a hard testa. Cotyledons leafy. 
Trees often armed with axillary spines. 
Leaves. —Simple, with pinnate veins, entire or toothed. 
Flowers. —Small, in axillary racemes. 
Synonym.— Phoberos, Loureiro. 
Although Loureiro’s Preface bears date 1788, the title-page is that of 1790, so that in strict 
priority Schreber’s name (published in 1789) should be preferred; but as Phoberos has been generally 
adopted, and Scolopia runs some risk of being confounded with Scopolia, it is perhaps better to retain the 
former. (J. J. Bennett, Plants Javanicce Rariores , p. 188). T think, however, that the reasons quoted 
for the supercession of Scolojna are quite inadequate. 
Botanical description.— Species, S. Brownii. F. Muell., Fragm. iii, 11. 
Perfectly glabrous in all its parts. 
Leaves. —From ovate to oblong—lanceolate, mostly acuminate, obtuse or almost acute, rarely 
rounded at the top, 1| to 3 inches long, always narrowed into a petiole of 3 to 4 lines, entire 
or slightly undulate—toothed, rather thick and smooth, obscurely triplinerved, but all the 
veins less conspicuous than in most species, either without glands or with two or three 
marginal glands underneath. 
Racemes. —Short and axillary, or forming a terminal panicle of 1 to 2 inches. 
Pedicels. —2 to 3 lines. 
Calyx. —Four-cleft, smaller than is S. crenata, apparently persistent. 
Petals. —Four, rather longer than the calyx, deciduous. 
Stamens. —Numerous, with slender filaments surrounded by a ring of glands, either distinct and 
shortly club-shaped or irregularly connate. 
Anthers. —Small, the process of the connective glabrous, and usually as long as the cells. 
Placentas. —Three, with about four ovules to each. 
Stigma. —Slightly three-lobed.—(B.F1. i, 107.) 
Botanical Name. — Scolopia. I am not certain as to the derivation. 
Perhaps from the Greek skolops — skolopos, a stake; Brownii after the celebrated 
Robert Brown. 
