THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 57 



Petioles — as long as the blade ; round ; smooth ; inserted on a kid- 

 ney-shaped projection of the bark and surrounded at the insertion by a 

 thin expansion of the epidermis. Stipules absent. 



INFLORESCENCE. 



Flowers monoecious, yellow, or yellowish-green ; pubescent ; in ter- 

 minal corymbose cymes bearing many small flowers ; the central flower 

 in the cjme or in its forks being always female. The flowers are 

 scentless absolutely. The peduncle is often seen arising from exterior 

 axils. Bracts, entire small, one below each sub-division of the cyme, 

 and generally one pressing on the calyx. 



I.— MALE FLOWERS. 



Found at the extremities of the ramifications of the main flower 

 stalk, on short articulated pedicels ; deciduous. 



CALYX — greenish ; sepals five, lanceolate, imbricate. 



PiU2FLORATion, convoluted. 



COROLLA — yellow; J inch in diameter; petals five, ovafe-ob- 

 Jong ; villous within. Hooker soys that the corolla is salver-shaped. ; 

 Roxburgh says it is campanulate. It is the female corolla that is 

 campanulate, as will be seen from my Plate V accompanying. 



Pr<efloration, contorted. 



STAMENS — many, says Hooker ; 8 — 10, says A. de Jussieu * 

 6 says Roxburgh. 



Filaments — connate, says Hooker. A. de Jnssieu describes them 

 thus: — " Inferiorly connate, of which 3 — 5 are interior and larger than 

 the outer ones. " (Euphorbiacearum Genera, p. 37, Paris, 1824). 

 Roxburgh, on the other hand, describes the arrangement of the fila- 

 ments thus : — " Filaments six, the central one very thick and columnar ; 

 the five external ones filiform, towards the base adhering to the central 

 one ; all erect and a little longer than the calvx." The central masa 

 of filamentous column represents the abortive Gynoecium. 



Anthers — yellow ; often tinged brown. Says Roxburgh — u Ten, 

 sagittate, equal ; five supported by the long central filament, and one by 

 each of the others." Hooker describes the anthers as erect, 2-celled. 

 The anther-lobes dehisce longitudinally from above downward. Anthers, 

 says Baillon, are extrorse, dehiscing marginally. Pollen — large, 

 spherical. Disk — always present but varies in form. It is either a 

 yellow entire ring, or is made up of five yellow glandules or squamules 

 " The glands of the hypogynous disk are free or united " (Baillon), 



