955. StemoNURus fjetidus (R. W.) leaves elliptic
oblong acuminated venous, pubescent beneath : flowers
terminal, small, cymose-panicled, every where
clothed with short hairs: stamens glabrous : style
about the length of the ovary : drupe succulent oliveshaped,
purple when ripe, nut thin.
Neilgherries in woods, and thickets : flowering
during the rainy season, but may generally be met
with in both flower and fruit.
This, when growing in favourable situations, becomes
a large umbrageous tree; the leaves are of a
deep green colour, and when young marked with prominent
veins to an extent far beyond what the draftsman
has here represented. From what cause, lam
unable to state, the flowers are often all males, for a
longtime 1 had specimens of this tree in my herbarium
before I got them in sufficient perfection to enable
me to make out its genus. The leaves vary greatly in
size, I have seen them upwards of seven inches long
and three broad, but the usual size is from 4 to 6 by
about 2 broad. The flowers are very numerous small,
yellow, clothed with short hairs both outside and in,
and during the heat of the day exhaling the most
abominable smell of carrion. The fruit is about the
size and shape of an olive, pulpy when ripe, and the
stone sfc> thin and soft that it can be easily cut with
a knife.
BURSINOPETALUM (R.W.)
Flowers bisexual superior. Calyx 4-toothed.
Petals five, furnished at the apex with an inflexed
bidentate process, estivation valvate. Stamens 5, anthers
2-celled introrse. Ovary adherent, one-celled,
with a single ovule pendulous from near the apex.
Drupe ovoid umbilicate, one-celled, one-seeded,
endocarp deeply inflexed so as neartly to divide the
cell into two compartments. Embryo small, eccentrc,
immersed in the apex of the flesby albumen ; radical
very long superior.
A large umbrageous tree with very dark green, almost
purplish foliage: leaves alternate, long petioled,
oblong elliptical, acuminated at both ends, from two
to three inches long by about one and a halfbroad; glabrous
coriaceous. Flowers,terminal cymosely pauicled,
small in proportion to the tree, calyx conical, adhering
to the ovary, limb short, cup-shaped 5-toothed : petals
five, ovate pointed, very coriaceous (whence the
name, lealherv petals) each furnished within at the
point with a little bidentate hook. Stamens five alternate
with the petals, filaments short compressed,
ambers large, cordate ovate, obtuse two-celled introrse
attached near the base.- Ovary enclosed within
the tube of the calyx and adherent, covered by a
thick fleshy disk : style sh o rt: stigma obtuse. Fruit
drupaceous, about the size of a small plumb, ovoid,
the apex marked by a broad scar where the flower had
separated. Putamen hard, deeply inflexed on one
side. Embryo small, eccentric, immersed near the
apex of a copious fleshy albumen, the radicle, very
long, in proportion to the cotyledons, pointing towards
the bilom or apex of the seed.
This genus differs from all the rest of the order in
its peculiar seed, and from each by many characters.
It will farm with Alph. De Candolle’s genus Hypo-
carpus, a new section of the order distinguished by
their inferior ovary.
956. Bursinopblalum arboreum (R .W .)
On the slopes of the hills at Sispara in dense forests
flowering in April and May, at the same time bearing
ripe fruit In February, when coming into leaf and
several weeks before the expansion of the flowers, the
foliage is of a lively green colour, afterwards it deepens
so much as almost to to acquire a purplish tint.
957. Citrus vane arts (Risso.) Leaves elliptical
acute or acuminaied, slightly toothed: petiol more
or less winged, flowers large white: fiuit orange coloured,
roundish or slighly elongated or depressed :
rind with concave vesicles of oil, pulp acid or bitter.
Neilgherries, on the slopes below Kottergberry and
Coonoor ; in the opinion of the Collector quite wild
but possibly raised from seed accidentally dropped by
travellers.
I am doubtful whether this is the true C. vulgaris,
some points of the character are at variance with the
figure, but none of much importance and without
better specimens, for comparison, of the true C.
Vulgaris than I possess, I could not venture to found
a distinct species on these differences.
958. Citrus Limetta (Risso) leaves oval or
oblong often toothed: petiol more or less winged or
margined : flowers small, white : fruit pale yellow
ovoid or roundish, terminated by a knob : rind with
concave vesicles of o il: pulp watery acid or sweetish
occasionally slightly bitter.
Orange valley, near Kottergberry, flowering August
and September certainly wild. A low, very ramou.i
erect, thorny, bush covered during the flowering season
with a profusion of beautiful fragrant white
flowers; a very ornamental shrub, well deserving a
place in the shrubbery, where, judging from what I
saw at Kottergherry, it grows freely.
959. H ypericum H ookerianum (W. & A.:) glabrous,
shrubby, diffuse : stem terete ; young branches compressed
: leaves opposite, somewhat distant, oblong,
obtuse with a mucro, contracted at the base with a
kind of very short petiole ; lateral nerves arching,
and anastomosing ; pellucid dots round and oblong,
black dots none : flowers (large) clustered at the ends
of the branches : sepals roundish-obovate, obtuse,entire,
without black dots : petals not dotted : stamens
very numerous : styles 5, distinct, overtopping the
stamens,shorter than the ovary : stigmas obtuse : cap-
tule 5-celled.— W. and A. Prod.p. 99.
Neilgherries in swampy ground, flowering in Feb., and
March,a shrub with long slender branches, distichous
ovate obtuse leaves, perforated with numerous pellucid
points, the branches terminated by clusters of large
yellow flowers, which, when they first open are nearly
saucer-shaped from the overlapping of the edges of
the petals. It is at once distinguished from H. My-
sorense by the form and direction of the leaves
which are distichous in this, and decussate, or crossing
and spreading in four directions, in that.
960-1. Garcinia papilla (R. W.) dioecious leaves
short petioled, obovate, obtuse: flowers axillary, nearly
sessile, aggregated in the stameniferous, solitary or
three together in the fructiferous plant: stamens numerous,
filaments united, forming a thick short andro-
phore without a sterile style : anthers 2-celled dehiscing
longitudinally : ovary globose 8-celled : style a thick
short fleshy body, crowned with 8 spreading star-
like persistent stigmas, enlarging with the fruit : fruit
ovate, oblong, furrowed, 8 or, by abortion 4 or 6 celled
crowned with the groatly enlaiged style: seed somewhat
triangular, covered with a thin coloured membranous
tesla.