4. Eugenia, Linn.

Shrubs or trees, glabrous or rarely tomentose or villous. Leaves opposite, penniveined. Flowers solitary and axillary, or in terminal or lateral cymes or panicles. Calyx-tube globose to narrow-turbinate; lobes 4, rarely 5. Petals the same number as the calyx-lobes. Stamens numerous, in many series. Ovary 2- or rarely 3-celled; style filiform; stigma small; ovules numerous in each cell. Fruit a berry, rarely dry and fibrous, crowned by the persistent calyx-limb. Seeds solitary or few, globose or variously compressed; testa membranous or cartilaginous. Embryo thick and fleshy; radicle short; cotyledons thick, more or less united or distinct.

An immense genus of more than 700 species, spread over the tropical and subtropical regions of both hemispheres. There is little to separa e it from Myrtus except the thick and fleshy embryo with a short radicle. The single New Zealand species is endemic.