Melodinus
(from melon, an apple, and dineo, to turn round; referring to the shape of the fruit). SYNS. Bicorona, Lycimnia. ORD. Apocynaceae. A genus comprising about fifteen species of woody-stemmed, often climbing, stove shrubs, natives of the East Indies, South China, the Malay Archipelago, the Islands of the Pacific, and tropical Australia. Flowers white, often fragrant, disposed in short terminal cymes; corolla with a cylindrical tube, and five oblique or sickle-shaped, spreading lobes; the mouth of the tube furnished with a coronet composed of five to ten small erect scales. Fruit a globose two-celled berry, pulpy inside. Leaves opposite, penniveined. The only species yet introduced is the one here described. For culture, see Dipladenia. M. monogynus(one-styled). fl. white, fragrant; panicles axillary and terminal, sub-globular, brachiate, crowded. July. fr. yellow, four-cornered, the size of an orange, containing an edible pulp. l. lanceolate, shining, acuminated Northern and Eastern India, 1820. (B. M. 2527; B. R. 834.)