eer 
Tas. 6862. 
CALOTROPIS cicantra. 
Native of India. 
Nat. Ord. AscLEPIADEXZ.—Tribe CYNANCHER. 
Genus Catorropis, Br.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. vol. ii. p. 754.) 
Catorroris gigantea ; arbuscula ramulis foliis subtus et inflorescentia appresse 
lanatis, foliis sessilibus late oblongis v. cuneato-oblongis obovatisve submucro- 
natis basi cordatis v. amplexicaulibus, pedunculis axillaribus, floribus alabastro 
ovoideis corymbosis albis v. lilacinis pedicellis crassis, corolle lobis revolutis 
tortisque, columna staminea magna crassa truncata, calcaribus basi involutis. 
C. gigantea, Br. in Ait. Hort. Kew. ed. 2, vol. ii. p. 78; Hamilt. in Trans. Linn. 
Soe. vol. xiv. p. 245; Wight Ill. Pl. Ind. Or, t. 155,156A; Brand, For. 
Flor. p. 331; Griff. Ic. Pl. Asiat. t. 397, 398; Dene. in DC. Prodr. 
vol. viii. p. 535; Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vol. iv. p. 17; Bot. Reg. t. 58. 
Asclepias gigantea, Willd. Sp. Pl. p. 1264; Rowb. Fl. Ind. vol. ii. p. 30. 
Ericu et Bel-ericu, Rheede Hort. Mal. vol. ii. pp. 52, 56, t. 31. 
Both this and C. procera having flowered in the same 
month of the same year, I have taken the opportunity of 
figuring both in the same number of the Magazine. (C. 
gigantea is a much larger coarser plant than C. procera, 
and the area it inhabits is much more extended to the east- 
ward, reaching China and Borneo. It occurs in waste 
places throughout India, from the Panjab and Scinde to 
Ceylon and Singapore, often gregariously, and ascends the 
Himalayan valleys to 3000 feet elevation. Brandis remarks 
of it, that it may be said to belong to the moister districts 
of India, and its congener to the drier; but this is only so 
far the case that the latter never reaches the more rainy 
regions of Bengal and transgangetic India, where C. gigantea 
abounds. <A better contrast is afforded by the extra-Indian 
distribution of the two; that of C. gigantea being to the 
eastward, reaching China, and of CU. procera confined to the 
westward, and reaching the Cape de Verd Islands. The 
properties of the two are akin, but the strong silky flax 
yielded by the inner bark of C. gigantea is finer, and used 
for making the robes of native princes, as also for bow- 
strings, fishing-lines and nets, for which latter purpose its 
FEB. Ist, 1886, 
