Batis P.Browne

Glabrous, monoecious or dioecious shrubs, often nodding or prostrate; the bark flaking off; branching alternate, sometimes rooting and branching at the nodes. Leaves opposite, succulent, linear, apically pointed or mucronate, basally clasping but drying with an umbonate appendage; stipules inconspicuous, caducous. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, in monoecious species the flowers borne separately on short leafy axes (brachyblasts) with male and female flowers sessile on the same shoot, in dioecious species the flowers borne in short, dense axillary catkins or syncarps. Male flowers subtended by a bract or leaf and sur-rounded by a pair of tepallike bracts (spathella), the stamens 4, alternating with 4 staminodes or appendages, the anthers ovoid, exserted, the filaments glabrous, the gynoecium rudimentary or wanting; female flowers or catkins subtended by a pair of scalelike bracts or by leaves, the pistils fused or separate, when fused bearing a scalelike bract near the apex, the pistil 4-locular, each locule with a single erect, basal ovule, the style persistent, short or wanting, the stigmas 2-capi-tate, fimbriate, persistent. Fruits drupes or syncarps, the outer tissues fleshy or leathery, the endocarp woody; seeds 1-4 in each pistil, oblong, nearly straight.

The Malaysian species, B. argillicola is found on littoral,rarely flooded, saline clay plains around Merauke in southern New Guinea, behind the mangroves where it occurs sometimes gregariously over large areas though it is sometimes also found solitary on the edge of the mangroves and of bushes scattered over the plains. It seems not to be entirely restricted to clayey soils as it is also found on sandy banks along small creeks in open connection with the sea but out of reach of normal high tide. For a full description of the habitat of this species cf. van Royen Nova Guinea n.s. 1 1956 176-180 f. 1, t. 9. Fl. Aug.-Oct. (end dry season), fr. Dec.-Jan. (wet season).B. maritima, the American species, is also found on saline clay plains, but these appear to be regularly flooded by the tides.