the joints: leaves distichous, lanceolate: panicles 
terminal, loose, branches filiform: flowers scattered, 
paired, small, fruit hairy. 
Courtallum, Malabar, Bolumputty, &e. This spe- 
cies 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 Zingiberaceæ, 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. 了 HRYNIUM CAPITATUM (Willd.), leaves ra- 
dical long petioled, ovate oblong: heads of flowers 
petiolary and terminal, glomerate: bracts truncato- 
ineurved. Roxb. Fl. In. 
Malabar. 
I only know this plant from description and dri- 
ed specimens, never, so far as I recolleet, hav- 
ing met with it growing. It 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 an- 
ticipated by Linnæus among his Scitamineæ that he, 
judging, I presume, from Rheede's figure only, re- 
ferred this plant to Pontederea and described it under 
the name of P. ovata, quoting Rheede's figure as his 
authority for the plant. I am not at all clear on the 
point of its bearing petiolar inflorescence as described 
by Roxburgh. The petiol, it seems to me, commences 
at 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. 
If 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, hermapbrodite 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 and 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 com- 
posed of large cells, the coriaceous walls of which 
cause the resistance experienced on pressing. Their 
thickness, towards the base or point of attachment, 
is about three or four inches. It 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 deseribes from the Dindigul 
range of hills. It may therefore be as well to add 
that the Anamallay Hills form part of the same range. 
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 glo- 
bosé, stemless: leaves glabrous, lanceolate, waved, 
tapering to the point, bluntish, rough on the margins : 
scape erect, many-flowered (10-15): flowers sessile, 
declinate with an obliquely campanulate border : fruit 
a fleshy tuber with imperfect seed. 
Coimbatore distriet, not unfrequent in cultivated 
ground or under the shelter of hedges, flowering dur- 
ing rainy weather, most freely during the autumnal 
months. It 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 inseets that of a rich eluster looked at, and 
pronounced most beautiful by moon light, the even- 
ing before, the fragments only are found next morn- 
ing. When the seape is cut and immersed in a bottle 
of water they open equally well, and then they will en- 
dure 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 ad- 
vantage when selecting the specimen for representation. 
2021-22. CRINUM TOXICARIUM (Roxb.), “ Caule- 
scent : leaves sparce, lanceolar : flowers pedicelled, nu- 
merous (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 cer- 
tain 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. PANCRATIUM vERECUNDUM (Soland), spathe 
4-8-flowered: leaves linear acute: limb of the cor- 
olla shorter than the tube: divisions of the crown ` 
alternately deeper, stamens ineurved, two or three 
times longer than the segments of the erown. 
Coimbatore, not unfrequent near hedges where the 
soil is rieh and light, flowers most freely during the 
autumnal rains, but is generally to be met with in 
flower during rainy weather. flowers are pure 
white, the leaves linear, radiating all round and curv- 
ed baek causing their tips to rest on the ground. It 
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 
eut and made to blow out of the reach of their 
enemies. 
2024. AGAVE viviPERA (Linn.), stemless, leaves 
all radical, dentate: scape panicled : tube of the cor- 
olla contraeted 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. Í have, however, in this 
and the following instance departed from that rule, 
as affording examples of an interesting metamor- 
phosis by which the flower buds become converted 
CE) 
