Boerhaavia. diandrta monogynia. 147 



Benrj. Gadha-poorna, the red variety • and Shweta-poor- 

 na, the white one. 



Talu dama. Rheetl. Mai. 7. p. 105. t. 56. good for a young- 

 luxuriant plant. 



B. diandra, and erecta. Burm. Flor. Ind. p.S. t. 1. seem 

 to be our plant, taken at different ages. 



B. erecta. Gcert. Carp. ii. 209. 1. 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 we have. The long, 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, 

 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 ; 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, channelled. 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 white, minute flowers. Calyx (apparently the germ), be- 

 neath, five-sided, covered with headed glutinous glands; 

 mouth entire, and much contracted. Corol cainpanulate, 

 plaited, inserted on the crown of 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 re- 

 quires a powerful lens, and much patience to understand the 



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