Marlea
(its native name in Assam). SYNS. Pseudalangium, Rhytidandra, Stylidium, Stylis. ORD. Cornaceae. A small genus (four or five species) of glabrous, pubescent, or tomentose, greenhouse trees or shrubs, natives of tropical and sub-tropical Asia, the warmer parts of Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Flowers white, hermaphrodite, disposed in axillary, simple or dichotomous cymes, with articulated pedicels; petals four to eight, free, or cohering in the base of the tube. Leaves alternate, petiolate, membranaceous, oblong-lanceolate or broadly-cordate, rotundate, oblique, entire or angularly lobed. The species best known to cultivation is C. begoniaefolia. It thrives in a compost of sandy loam and peat. Propagated by cuttings of short side shoots, detached with a heel, and inserted in sand, under glass. M. begoniaefolia (Begonia-leaved). fl. yellowish, in axillary dichotomous cymes. Summer. l. alternate, exstipulate, petiolate, unequally cordate, acuminated, angularly lobed or entire. An evergreen shrub or tree, often small, but sometimes attaining a height of 60ft. Northern India, China, and Japan, 1824. (B. R. xxiv. 61.)