Melastoma
(from melas, black, and stoma, the mouth; the black berries of certain species, when eaten, stain the mouth). ORD. Melastomaceae. A genus comprising about forty species of stove evergreen, often erect, and strigose-pilose shrubs; one species creeping. They are natives of tropical Asia, Africa, North Australia, Oceania, and (one species) the Seychelles. Flowers purple, violet, or rose, rarely white, showy, bibracteate, at the apices of the branchlets, solitary, sub-fasciculate or paniculate; calyx strigose, setose, or paleaceous; lobes five, rarely six or seven; petals often five, obovate or unequilateral, sometimes ciliated at base. Leaves petiolate, oblong or lanceolate, coriaceous, entire, three to seven-nerved. Few of the species are now in cultivation. They thrive best in a compost of equal parts loam and peat. Propagated, during spring, by cuttings, placed in sandy peat, under a bell glass, in heat. In winter, a rather dry atmosphere is desirable. M. corymbosum (corymbose). fl. bright purple, in terminal corymbs. Summer. l. stalked, cordate-ovate, glabrous, seven to nine-nerved, rich satiny-green above, paler beneath; margins sharply dentate-serrate. Tropical Africa. (B. M. 904.) By an oversight, this species was not described under Amphiblemma; its correct name is A. cymosum (B. M. 5473).
M. denticulatum (toothed). fl. white, few, cymose; calyx lobes lanceolate. July. l. petiolate, oval-oblong, acuminate, five-nerved, bristly above, pale beneath. h. 3ft. to 4ft. New Caledonia, 1855. (B. M. 4957.) M. macrocarpum (long-fruited). A synonym of M. malabathrica. M. malabathrica (Malabar). fl. purple, large; corymbs one to five-flowered. July. l. elliptic-oblong, obtuse at the base, acute at the apex, quite entire. Branches tetragonal, rough from strigae. h. 6ft. to 8ft. East Indies, 1793. (B. M. 529; B. R. 672, under name of M. macrocarpum.) M. sanguineum (bloody-veined). fl. purple, large, few, terminal; petals six, large. September and October. l. ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, five-nerved, green above and shining, but red at the nerves beneath and on the short petioles. h. 4ft. to 6ft. Straits of Sunda, 1818. (B. M. 2241.)