the joints: leaves distichous, lanceolate: panicles
terminal, loose, branches filiform: flowers scattered,
paired, small, fruit hairy.
Courtallum, Malabar, Bolumputty, &c. This species
is nearly allied to the Maranta arundinacea, or
West Indian Arrowroot, but is not, I have heard, used
in this country for the preparation of that farina.
On the Malabar Coast where most of the Indian
Arrowroot is prepared, I am told a variety of species,
not of this order, but of the Zingiberaceee, are used,
Curcuma, Costus, Zingiber, and Alpinia, all being
laid under contribution to supply the raw material,
Maranta being rejected on account of the woodiness
of the roots, rendering them at the same time difficult
to work and unproductive.
2016. P hrynium cafitatum (Willd.), leaves radical,
long petioled, ovate oblong: heads of flowers
petiolary and terminal, glomerate: bracts truncato-
incurved. Roxb. FI. In.
Malabar.
I only know this plant from description and dried
specimens, never, so far as I recollect, having
met with it growing. I t and one or two
others belonging to the genus, present forms very
unusual in this order. In Rushes and Pontederea
we have floriferous petiols, but so little was such anticipated
by Linnaeus among his Scitamineae that he,
judging, I presume, from Rheede’s figure only, referred
this plant to Pontederea and described it under
the name of P. ovata, quoting Rheede’s figure as his
authority for the plant. Lam not at all clear on the
point of its bearing petiolar inflorescence as described
by Roxburgh. The petiol, it seems to me, commences
a t the joint, and all below seems peduncle rather than
petiol. I infer from Roxburgh’s description that
there are two forms of leaves, the first truly radical
without flowers or joint, the other, a long peduncle
bearing on its apex a tuft of flowers and a leaf, or,
perhaps, it might more correctly be called a modified
spadix and spathe.
I f this view be found correct, it will indicate an
analogy if not an affinity between this genus and
Juncus, and through them, between the two families.
2017-18. Musa superba (Roxb.), stem short,
conical, thickly covered with the spongy petiols of
decayed not sheathing leaves: leaves petioled, linear,
rounded at both ends, cuspidate: spadix drooping:
spathes broad, oblong, obtuse, subcordate at the base,
many flowered, hermaphrodite ones persistent. _
Anamallay Hills, generally in clumps in crevices of
rocks, often almost inaccessible, very rarely flowering
or producing fruit. The drawing, all except figures
2 aud 3, which were from a wild specimen, were
taken from a plant introduced into a garden here.
The remains of the leaves with which the stem is
clothed are compressible, but not properly soft. A
sort of corky feel, but when cut into are found composed
of large cells, the coriaceous walls of which
The Iyamallay and Bolamputty Hills form another
group of hills near Coimbatore on which this plant
is also indigenous. The cluster of young fruit, fig. 1,
is, for want of room, reduced in size.
2019-20. Crinum latifolium (Linn.), bulb globose,
cause the resistance experienced on pressing. Their
thickness, towards the base or point of attachment,
is about three or four iuches. I t is, as seen growing
among its native rocks, a handsome plant not so as
seen in the garden, where, owing to exposure, it had
become very much torn and ragged. Roxburgh says
he received the plants he describes from the Dindigul
range of hills. I t may therefore be as well to add
that the Anamallay Hills form part of the same range.
stemless: leaves glabrous, lanceolate, waved,
tapering to the point, bluutish, rough on the margins :
scape erect, many-flowered ( 1 0 -1 5 ) : flowers sessile,
declinate with an obliquely campanulate border: fruit
a fleshy tuber with imperfect seed.
Coimbatore district, not unfrequent in cultivated
ground or under the shelter of hedges, flowering during
rainy weather, most freely during the autumnal
months. I t is, when in full flower, a very handsome
plant, but is seldom seen in that state unless cut over
night before the flowers open, they being so subject
to attacks of insects that of a rich cluster looked at, and
pronounced most beautiful by moon light, the evening
before, the fragments only are found next morning.
When the scape is cut and immersed in a bottle
of water they open equally well, and then they will endure
a couple of days and are most beautiful. The
foliage of the plant figured is not in proportion to the
flower, but that for want of room was considered an advantage
when selecting the specimen for representation.
2021-22. Crinum toxicarium (Roxb.), “ Caulescent
: leaves sparce, lanceolar: flowers pedicelled, numerous
(even as far as 60 in a hemispheric umbel) :
capsules with one or two bulliform seeds.” Roxb.
Coimbatore, not uufrequent in low lying rich soil,
usually flowering on every recurrence of wet weather.
Like the preceding, it furnishes savoury food to certain
insects, for, opening its flowers after sun set, they
are generally devoured before sun rise. The leaf
represented is smaller than the original which was
about 3 feet long and over 6 inches broad. In place
of forming seed, the fruitful ovaries become converted
into tubers which grow when planted, but so far as
I have ever seen it ripens no seed.
2023. P ancratium verecundum (Soland), spathe
4-8-flowered: leaves linear acute: limb of the corolla
shorter than the tube: divisions of the crown
alternately deeper, stamens incurved, two or three
times longer than the segments of the crown.
Coimbatore, not unfrequent near hedges where the
soil is rich and light, flowers most freely during the
autumnal rains, but is generally to be met with in
flower during rainy weather. The flowers are pure
white, the leaves linear, radiating all round and curv- •
ed back causing their tips to rest on the ground. I t
is pretty, but, like the two former, very fugacious,
the flowers opening after sun set and usually before
morning they are consumed, if not saved by being
cut and made to blow out of the reach of their
enemies.
2024. Agave vtvtpera (Linn.), stemless, leaves
all radical, dentate: scape panicled: tube of the corolla
contracted in the middle: stamens equaling or
somewhat exceeding the lobes of the perianth.
This is an introduced and naturalized plant, and
on that ground is scarcely entitled to a place in a
work on Indian Botany. I have, however, in this
and the following instance departed from that rule,
as affording examples of an interesting metamorphosis
by which the flower buds become converted