564 MONOECIA MONANDRIA. Cfuira. 



Stems and ramiji cations numerous, several feet long, float- 

 ing in the water, jointed, striated, fragile, scabrous, piped, 

 but no stony crust covers them. Leaves about twelve in the 

 verticel, tapering, from ten to twelve-jointed, they are about 

 as long as the points of the stem or branches, on the upper 

 side of each joint are four minute bristles, or leaflets of the 

 calyx. Floivers, they occupy the upper side of the first two 

 or three joints of the leaves of the verticel. Male flowers, 

 what I take for them, are the small, naked, orange-coloured, 

 round bodies close to the base of the germ, which gradually 

 decay as the germ acquires size. Female flowers solitary, 

 just above the male, pitcher-shaped, embraced by the four 

 bristle-like leaflets, already mentioned, and crowned with a 

 fine pointed stigma; when this body comes to maturity, it 

 contains one black, spirally grooved seed. 



2. C.furcata. R. 



Stems filiform, smooth. Leaves verticelled, proliferous, 

 with flowers crowded in the divisions. 



Beng. Jhanj, which is the general name for all such ac- 

 quatic plants. 



Found in tanks, and stagnant sweet water near Calcutta. 



Stems and branches numerous, jointed, smooth, and of a 

 soft, flaccid texture, often several feet long. Leaves or 

 branchlets verticelled, about six or seven in the verticel, the 

 superior, or flower- bearing ones proliferous, the most distinct 

 of them resembling compound, and even decompound um- 

 bels, with the extreme divisions or joints two or three-pomt- 

 ed, they are smooth in every part; the joints are often so soft, 

 and numerous that the whole seem to be little intricate balls 

 enclosing the blossoms, and seeds with their two-forked extre- 

 mities projecting hedgehog-like. Floicers numerous, in the 

 divisions of the leaves; the male ones yellow, and theyema/e 

 ones green, mixed, in general the latter are most numerous. 

 Calyx of the female no other than the division of the leaves. 

 Seeds globular, spiral, with the stigma from three to five- 

 parted on its apex. 



