260 DiADELPHiA DECANDHiA. Crotalmia, 



small. Racemes (eriiiinal, siiigle. Bracles oval, one-flower- 

 ed. Flowers numerous, papilionaceous, large, of a beautiful 

 bright yellow. Calyx bilabiate ; the upper lip two cleft; the 

 under one three-parted in the middle, and there gaping; at 

 the apex the segments are united. Banner obtuse, erect. 

 Wings oblong-, obtuse. Keel much pointed, slightly twisted 

 at the apex and closely shut. Filaments, their lower half 

 united into one body, with a fissure down the upper side, 

 M hich has a circular gape at the base ; extremities free, and 

 alternately shorter. Anthers on the shorter filaments linear, 

 on the longer ovate, and two-lobed.* Legumes sessile, club- 

 shaped, downy, from one to two inches long. Seeds numer- 

 ous, kidney-formed. 



This plant yields the natives their best hemp, for they have 

 no idea of the quality of the bark of the counnon hen)p plant, 

 Cannabis, which is indigenous in every part of India; the 

 leaves and Howcrs thereof being the only parts used by them. 

 These they employ as an intoxicating, narcotic drug, and a 

 most powerful one it is. 



* There is something very interesting in those two sorts of sta- 

 mens. If a flower is opened sometime before the natural time of 

 its expanding, which must be just before any of the anthers burst, 

 the filaments of the subulate set will then be found considerably 

 longer than those of the round set, and the stigma will then be 

 about the same height ; these long anthers come to maturity long 

 before the round ones, and about the time the stigma is among 

 them ; but the style continues to grow longer, by which means the 

 bearded stigma pushes on with it much of the pollen from the long 

 anthers whose filaments do not now lengthen any more ; but those 

 of the round ones now begin to lengthen, pushing their anthers 

 considerably beyond the apices of the linear set, and even with 

 the stigma, by this economy they come in contact with it before or 

 about the time of their maturity. These changes I have found 

 most conspicuous in Crotularia juncca and pentapkylla, whose 

 Howers are very large, every part being easily seen with the naked 

 eye. 



