Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 1.djvu/270

138 it belongs to the order. Platynema and Hiptage, both certainly Indian plants, belong to the 2d tribe, and Hiraea equally so to the third. As these three are all old and weh known genera, it is unnecessary further to notice them here. Malpighia is also well known but not in this quarter, on which account I have been induced to give a figure illustrative of the tribe, if not of the genus; for in truth I rather think this plant will be found to constitute the type of a new genus, when examined by Botanists conversant with the tribe, which I am not, and therefore abstain from giving what may prove a needless generic name. It differs from Malpighia in its unequal filaments and anthers, as well as in its very unequal styles, but associates in the characters of its sepals, petals, and fruit; on which account I refer it. to that genus. The peculiarities of the stamens and styles sufficiently distinguish the species.

Ancistrocladus, as already remarked, is an extensively distiibuted genus, and when the species referred here, rather from similarity of habit than Botanical scrutiny, have been carefully examined, will probably be found to embrace more than one genus, and form the type of a new order intermediate between DipterocarpeAe and Malpighiaceae, but removed from both by the subinferior 1-celled ovary, with a solitary erect ovule. Vahl describes the species he saw (from Ceylon) as pentandrous. The Courtallum one has 10 stamens, one I have from Mergui, has 10 stamens, but united at the base by pairs like those of Hopea. This last associates in habit and in the form of its flowers, but differs in the ovary, which seems rudimentary. In all I have seen in fruit the sepals enlarge and become wing-like as in the Dipterocarpeae, not the carpels themselves as in some Malpighiaceae. Whether these different forms will ultimately be considered to form types of so many genera, and the whole a new order, future experience must determine, but in the mean time I do not think it can with propriety be referred to this order without much violence to existing affinities.

With Dipterocarpeae it is associated on the one hand, by the wing-like expansion of its sepals, when in fruit, by a more or less perfect union of its petals and filaments towards the base, by its twisted aestivation, and finally by its exalbuminous seed and thick fleshy exceedingly crumpled cotyledons : while on the other, it is removed by the ovary being inferior, not superior; one, not 3-celled, and with one erect, not several, pendulous ovules; and finally, by its scandent habit. The erect solitary ovule and scandent habit are the only points by which it approaches Malpighiaceae, while it is removed by the insertion of the petals being perigynous, by their being exunguiculate and occasionally cohering at the base, by their aestivation being twisted, not imbricative, and lastly, by the crumpled cotyledons. Much examination however is still required for the satisfactory elucidation of this very curious genus, but enough has been ascertained to shew that it is more nearly allied to Dipterocarpeae than to Malpighiaceae.

M. Heteranthera, (R. W.) Shrubby, ramous, leaves roundish, armed with spiny teeth, glabrous : peduncles axillary, jointed, furnished with two bracteal scales : petals unequal, fimbriated on the margin; stamens monadelphous at the base, two of them much larger : styles three, all distinct, two larger much bent, the other straightish and smaller : fruit composed of three unequal sized drupes.

Hab.—Uncertain, but supposed to have been brought to Madras from China.

This, as it appears in the Horticultural garden growing in a flower pot, is a small, very ramous, erect, leafy shrub, the leaves armed with sharp spiny teeth, like the Holly. The petals are plaited, unequal sized, fimbriated on the margin, usually pure white, but occasionally with a light rosy tinge. The fruit rarely arrives at maturity, but when it does seems to consist of three berries, scarcely adherent except at the base, one usually much larger than the other two, and that the one which bore the smallest style.

The two species of this genus established by Roxburgh and adopted in our Prodromus, unless distinguishable by the fruit alone, seem either but varieties of the same plant, or the one we had before us as H. indica is incorrectly described, as having the leaves glabrous on both sides. This I have ascertained through a number of newly preserved specimens recently received, the under surface of the leaves of which are covered with soft downy pubescence. The same I observe must have been the case with my original specimens when first collected, as there are still some remains of it visible. These two species, it would appear from this, can only be distinguished by the form of the wings of the carpels, that is whether they are oblong or elliptic. This may be a good specific character, but not the clothing. I have specimens of a third species, from Mergui, with carpels nearly answering to Roxburgh's description of H. nutans, though not exactly, as they are orbicular in place of elliptic ; the leaves are nearly oval, acute at both ends, and glabrous, which marks, when added to the diffuse few flowered panicles form a combination of characters which leaves no doubt of this one being distinct from all the Indian forms, These three species then may be thus distinguished by their fruit.

H. indica, carpels each surrounded with an oblong-linear entire wing.

H. nutans, carpels "surrounded with a large entire reticulate scarious elliptical wing." (Roxb.)