MR. DALZELL ON ALTH-a;A LTJDAVIGII AKD CT3TAKCHE TUBITLOSA. 437 



Note on Althcea Ludwigii aniLCi/stanche tuhulosa 



By N. A. Dal^ll, Esq. 



[Read JS'ovember 4, 18G9.] 



r 



HAYiiira had occasion to spend a month or so in the district of 

 Mahine, on the Konkun coast, which is between the 19th and 20th 

 degrees of latitude, I there discovered two plants which, as 

 far as I am aware, have not been seen by any botanist, either in 

 this Presidency or in any other part of the peninsula of India. 

 These plants are the AltJicea Licdwigii and the CystancTie tuhulosa 

 of E. AVight. Both plants were well known to me as natives of 

 the banks of the Indus, where I gathered them in 1859. This 

 discovery led me to conjecture as to the manner in which these 

 plants had reached this tract of country. This tract, for thirty or 

 forty miles north and south, is a tolerably level plain raised a few 

 feet above the highest tides. It is covered by a layer of the finest 

 silt, variable in depth, and resting immediately on trap-rock. In 

 this silt not a stone or pebble is to be seen, and in the rainy season 

 it has the consistency of soft soap. 



I did not observe the Althcea growing on the natural surface of 

 the ground, but only where the surface soil had been removed, 

 while the Cystanclie was found growing in soft mud within a few 

 yards of the salt water, and, if I recollect right, the plant on which 

 it grew parasitically was the Calotropis. The seeds of these two 

 plants are minute, and might easily be carried along by currents 

 to long distances ; and reviewing all the circumstances, I could 

 come to no other conclusion than that the soil of this district, as 

 weU as the seeds, had been brought down by the flooded waters of 

 the Indus, and deposited on the spot where they are now found. 

 This conjecture is borne out by independent evidence of the rising 

 of the coast, there being raised beaches of sand and shingle in 

 many parts of this coast; and in one place the coast-road passes 

 through a cutting in this shingle. In fact, there is evidence of 

 a rising of the coast from the Gulf of Cambay down to Eutnaghery, 

 canoes having been found twelve miles inland on the Kattyawar 

 coast, and marine shells in the mud when cleaning out inland 



fresh-water ponds. 



A reference to a map of India will show that the flooded waters 

 of the Indus would pass along the smooth coast of Kattyawar, and^ 



keeping the direction thus given to them, would impinge on the 

 ery spot where the plants mentioned have been found. 



