Boerhaavia, DIANDRIA MONOGYNIA, 147 
— Beng. (rile fdotia: the red variety ; and Shiwetd-poor. 
’ na, the white one. 
Talu dama. Rheed, Mal.7. p. 105. t.56, good fora young 
luxuriant plant. < 
B. diandra, and erecta, Burm, Flor. Ind, p.3.t.1. seem 
to be our plant, taken at different ages. — 
B. erecta. Gert. Carp. ii. 209. t. 127. 
This species, whatever it may be, whether diffusa, erecta, 
repanda or diandra, or all of them, is the only one I have yet 
found in India. It is not common every where, but is one of 
the most troublesome weeds wehave. The Jong, fusiform, 
perennial roots, strike so deep, as to render it no easy task to 
dig them up. It produces blossoms and ripe seed during the 
whole year. 
Root perpendicular, fusiform, slender, perennial. Stem 
none ; branches many, herbaceous, with alternate, bifarious, 
roid smooth, jointed, often coloured branchlets spreading 
close on the ground, to an extent of many feet in a good s soil, 
but never striking root. Leaves opposite, unequal i in size, 
one of the leaves being alternately smaller in each pair; pe- 
tioled, variously cordate, margins more or less scalloped, - 
waved, and often coloured ; sometimes acute, sometimes ob- 
tuse ; all are smooth above, ‘and covered with a silver colour- 
ed pellicle underneath; size very various. Petioles shorter 
than the leaves, ahamutiodl Peduncles solitary, from the 
naked swelled joints between the leaves, but nearest to the 
“small leaf. At the ends of the branches, where the joints ap-_ 
proximate, they are so numerous as to form a panicle, each 
supporting’, from one to five, or six small heads of sessile, red 
or sto minute flowers. Cah, lyse (apparently the germ), be- 
i 
fey, th vothed cup, | eo 
quires a powerful lens, and much patience to understand the 
; J2 . 
in the divisions of which acy fleaneieg are inserted. It ay 1 oe 
