Boerhaavia. diandria monogynia. \49 



Boot perpendicular, fu-iform, slender, perennial. S^gmnone; 

 branches many, herbaceous, wiih 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 m size, one of the leaves being alternately smaller 

 ill each pair ; petioled, variously cordate, margins more or less 

 scalloped, waved, and often coloured ; sometimes acute, sometimes 

 obtuse ; all are smooth above, and covered with a silver coloured 

 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 approximate, they are so numer- 

 ous as to form a panicle, each supporting, from one to five, or six 

 small heads of sessile, red or while, minute flowers. — Calyx (ap- 

 parently the germ), beneath, five-sided, covered with headed ^1 itin- 

 ous glands ; month entire, and much contracted. — Coiol campanu- 

 late, plaited, inserted on the cro.wn 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 requires a pow- 

 erful lens, and much patience to understand the structure of this part 

 of the flower. — Filaments generally three, as long as the style. An-- 

 thers of two round lobes. — Germ oblong, hid in the belly of the ca- 

 lyx, one-celled ; o'culnm single, attached to the bottom of the cell. 

 Style slender. Stigma peltate. — Pericarp turbinate, five-sided, cover- 

 ed with clammy pedicelled glands, 8cc. exactly as in Gzertner's fi- 

 gures of his Boerhaavia erecta. 



Obs. There are two varieties of this plant in Bengal ; one with 

 red, the other with white flowers ; in other respects they are the same. 

 In the St. Helena plant, B. repanda of the hortus bengalensis, the 

 leaves are more angular, the inflorescence terminal, racemes verti' 

 celled; with one bracle only to each pedicel. 



