350 
brown in maturity. Seeds 4—5, oval, separated by cellular 
partitions, not bound by a circular linear hilum, but attached 
to a large lateral funiculus. 
Found twining in hedges and among bushes, usually near 
water. In the neighbourhood of Negapatam, it is common 
in sandy soil. It flowers during the rainy and cool seasons, 
and ripens its fruit about March. It may be considered, 
indeed, extensively distributed over India; but nowhere 
perhaps so abundantly as in the Presidency of Madras. The 
young pods are dressed and eaten by the natives. 
It would appear from a query of De Candolle, “an Planta 
Americana eadem certe ac Indica?" that there is some doubt 
as to the identity of the American and Indian plants named 
Mucuna pruriens; in my opinion not without reason, for I 
suspect De Candolle's character is taken from the former, 
and Sprengel’s from the latter. The keeled legumes and 
acuminated leaves which distinguish the first are certainly at 
variance with my plant. On comparing my drawing with 
Woodville’s plate, Tas. CLX XIII. a very remarkable differ- 
ence appears in the form of the racemes, and also in their size. 
The form of the segments of the calyx, in his figure, is very 
different from those of my plant: in his, they are represented 
as long, subulate teeth; in mine, they are short and triangu- 
lar, with their upper segment nearly a correct triangle. 
[Upon a careful comparison of Dr. Wight's figure and 
. Specimens, with the figure of Jacquin, (Americ. t. 122,) ™ 
American individuals in my Herbarium, both from St. Vin- 
cent and from Guiana, I am inclined to agree with Dr. 
Wight, and to consider the American and Asiatic spectes 
to be different. In our plant the leaves are smaller, 
leaflets more obtuse (not acuminated), and the 
leaflet more truly rhomboidal, the flowers are more gone 
stantly in threes, and, what affords perhaps the best charac 
ter, the pods are greatly broader, compressed, free hee 
any raised line on the back of the valve, whilst in - 
American M. pruriens the pods are much narrower, terete, 
and keeled on the valves. Rumphius plate is d 
characteristic of our plant, and Jacquin's is equally excellent 
e 
