NOTE ON A SUPPOSED ROOT-PARASITE FOUND AT MAHABLESHWAR. 75 



ber Meeting. Pounds and pounds of this delicious bulb are used as an 

 article of diet on fast days among Hindus. The root bulb is often sold 

 dried after being peeled. The plant itself belongs to the Sedgewort family, 

 and is described at p. 288 of Dalzell and Gibson's Flora. The bulbs are 

 gathered in January, February and March, after the plant dies. I exhibit 

 the plant here. It thrives in the rainy season, and grows abundantly in 

 tanks round Thana. The skin of the bulb is hairy ; the rootlets being 

 often two or three inches long and tufted at the apex, or extreme end. 

 The roots sometimes shoot out in rings round the body of the bulb. 

 The leaf of the plant is hispid, 3 to 5 feet long, studded with oblong 

 air spaces. The plant flowers in the rainy season about July or August, 

 and having lived its annual life, dies away. It is after this that the bulbs 

 are gathered ; they are edible even uncooked, but are not very palatable. They 

 are usually in very great quest, and are obtainable at one anna a hundred 

 bulbs. The hulwa made with sugar and milk is considered a dainty. This 

 huhva is more glutinous than the hulwa of Shingada. It would be interest- 

 ing to find out the relative food-value of these important articles of diet, 

 especially as regards the proportion of starch gluten, and salts. The leaf 

 does not seem to be sufficiently strong for any of the purposes for which 

 common bulrushes are used, such as for making mats, baskets, chair 

 bottoms, nor do I know of any medicinal uses of the plant. At page 721 of 

 his Vegetable Materia Medica, Dr. Dymock asks a question as to whether 

 Kasceroo (Hind) is the Scirpus Kysoor of Roxburgh. I am certain it is. 

 Dr. Dymock also says it is given in diarrhoea and vomiting. If in addition to 

 its value as a delicate article of food, it is really useful in diarrhoea, a 

 congee made of it with milk will be a very suitable form of nourishment in 

 diarrhoea cases and in vomiting. I can bear testimony to its bland and 

 soothing properties. The boiled bulb with common salt is very delicate eating. 



K. R. KIRTIKAR. 



NOTE ON A SUPPOSED ROOT-PARASITE FOUND 

 AT MAHABLESHWAR IN OCTOBER 1885. 



By Mrs. W. E. Hart,^^ on 15th March 1886. 

 In October a tuberous-rooted plant of curious structure, which I have 

 endeavoured to sketch below, was brought to me at Mahableshwar, from 

 one of the valley juDgles below the hill. The rains had continued more 

 than usually late, which may account for there being then still visible 

 a plant which neither I nor any one to whom I showed it had ever seen 

 before. It grew in clusters in moist red laterite clay, through which 

 occurred the numerous root fibres (lately severed) of some large dicotyled- 

 onous tree. The man who brought me the plant declared that he very 

 rarely met with it, never except during the rains, and then only in the 



