312 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXV. 



Each packet is numbered and a list of contents pasted on the outside of 

 the tin. Finally the tin is closed against damp and insects by a strip of 

 1 inch adhesive plaster all round the edge of the closed cover. 



«»f tin Lox 





C. For despatch by post. 



Tin boxes must be enclosed in a wooden one or they will be crushed 

 For sending 50 specimens or less small boxes made from cigar-box wood, 

 taking a few packets only, and with a diagonal partition inside to prevent 

 the top or bottom being crushed in, are useful. 



Put postage-stamps on a tie-on label, not on the box. 



Bannu, N.W.F.P.. 

 1st March 1917. 



H. D. PEILE. 



No. XVIII.— NOTE ON THE COLOUR OF FLOWERS IN 

 DYSOPHYLLA STELLATA, Bth. 



This species of Dysophylla is very common in South India and has purple 

 flowers and staminal hairs in nature. The plant is apparently ver^'' vari- 

 able in appearance so much so that Cooke in his Flora of Bombaxj includes 

 the species D. (/racilis and D tomentosa of the Flora of British India as 

 mere varieties of D. stellata. Recently specimens collected by me at 

 Talaguppa in the extreme Western Ghats of Mysore showed a few plants 

 of jD. stellata with absolutely white flowers and white staminal hairs. In 

 one of Wight's sheets in the Madras Herbarium (now at Coimbatore) the 

 corolla is white and the stamens pink. This variation in colour of flowers 

 has also been noted by Mr. Rangachari in Asystasia coromanddiana 

 (yellow and white flowers) in Striya lutea (white, yellow, pink and brown 

 corollas) and by Mr. Tadulingam in Evolvulus alsinoides (blue and white 

 flowers). While the colour variation in the above plants is a common 

 feature, the white flowered type in Dysophylla has been very rare. The 

 few specimens collected by me were in a mass of the pink flowered speci- 

 mens and no intermediates were observed by me. There is another minor 

 difference in the colour of the stem near the inflorescence between the two 

 types, the white flowered type being comparatively white or slightly pink. 

 I therefore propose the name Dysophylla stellata, var. alba for the new plant. 



Bangalore. Hth March 11)17. 



M. K. VENKATA RAO, 

 Senior Assistant Mycologist, 



