“Boerhaavia.  DIANDRIA MONOGYNIA, : 249 
Root perpendicular, fusiform, slender, perennial. Stem none; 
-branches many, herbaceous, with alternate, bifarious, round, smooth, 
jointed, often coloured branchlets spreading close on the ground, to 
an extent of many feet in a good soil but never striking root.— Leaves 
Opposite, unequal in size, one of the leaves being alternately smaller 
in each pair; petioled, variously cordate, margins fore or less 
‘scalloped, waved, aud often coloured ; sometimes acute, sometimes 
obtuse; all are smooth above, and covered with a silver coloured 
pellicle underneath; size very various.—Petioles shorter than the 
leaves, channélled.—Pedunieles’ solitary, from- the naked swelled 
joints between the leaves, but nearest to the-small leaf. ‘At the ends 
of the branches, where the joints approximate, they are so-numer- 
ous as to forni a panicle, each supporting, from’ one to five, « Paix 
‘small heads of sessile, red or white, minute flowers.— Calyx (ap- 
parently the germ), beneath, five-sided, covered with headed ; latin- 
ous glands; mouth entire, and much contracted.— Coro? campanu- 
late, plaited, inserted on the crowniof the calyx.— Nectary, a small 
fleshy, three-toothed cup, surrounding the base of the germ, in the 
divisions of which the-filaments are inserted. — It requires a pow 
erful lens, and much patience to understand the structure of this part 
_ Of the flower.— Filaments generally three, as-long as the style. An- 
thers of two round lobes.—Germ oblong, hid in the belly ‘of the ca- 
lyx, one-celled ; ovulum single, attached to the bottom of the cell. 
Style slender. Stigma peltate — Pericarp turbinate, five-sided, cover- 
ed with clammy pedicelled glands, &c. pe as in pura fi~ 
gures of his Boerhaavia erecta. 
Obs. There are two varieties of this plant in Bengal ; ; one with 
red, the other with white flowers; in other respects they are the same. 
In the St. Helena plant, B. repanda of the hortus bengalensis, the 
leaves are more angular, the inflorescence terminal, racemes i vM 
celled, with c oue bracte an to each pedicel, 
ge £5 
1 
