Ham. in Wall. Cat. 8336, excl. B. ; glabrous or pubescent, branches stout, leaves petioled elliptic oblong obovate or lanceolate, stipules large cleft, cymes axillary and terminal peduncled or sessile, branches trichotomous or whorled, flowers usually in dense globose heads, bracts broad often whorled persistent, fruit large ellipsoid 8-grooved, calyx-limb persistent. P. monticola, Kurz in Journ. As. Soc. 1872, ii. 315 ; For. Fl. ii. 11. Psychotria, Wall. Cat. 8337 ; Griff. Notul. iv. 268 ; Ic. Pl. Asiat, t. 479, f. 2.
ASSAM and the KHASIA MTS., ascending to 4000 ft. ; CACHAR, MUNNIPORE, and PEGU.
A large shrub. Leaves a foot long and under, very variable in breadth, usually narrowed into the petiole, rarely rounded at the base, variously coloured when dry, often purplish-brown or reddish, thinly coriaceous ; nerves slender, spreading, some¬times pubescent beneath ; petiole 1/3-1 in. ; stipules 1/2-1 in., axils villous, segments sometimes hooked and recurved. Cymes, large or small, rarely 2 in. across ; peduncle 4 in. or less, pubescent or villous ; branches stout, short or long ; bracts and bracteoles excessively variable, more or less persistent ; flowers subsessile, glabrous or pubescent. Calyx minute ; teeth 5, short or long. Corolla-tube short, glabrous, villous within. Fruit capitate, 1/4-1/2 in. long, variable in shape, ellipsoid or ovoid, sometimes narrowed towards the top ; grooves very shallow. Seed flat ventrally, with or without a 2-fid groove.—A very variable plant, covered with yellowish flowers in May, whence its name, which, never having been published, would be superseded by Kurz’s of P. mon¬ticola, were not the plant to which he gave that name an aberrant form, which is moreover erroneously described as glabrous in the Forest Flora ; under which circum¬stances, and considering that the name monticola has been since applied to a tropical African species, it is advisable to retain Hamilton’s appropriate one of fulva for this species.
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