142 NOTES ON THE FLORA OF CEYLON, 



species, which has a great medicinal reputation as a bitter febri- 

 fuge among the Malays, has been by them introduced to Ceylon. 

 It is known as " Titta-kinda," and occurs in an apparently wild 

 condition. In the neighbourhood of Kadawalla, on the Kelani 

 Eiver, about ten miles from Colombo, this plant is a striking 

 object, wreathing the stems of the Jak trees and Coco nuts with its 

 rooted twining stems. In January it was without flowers or fruit. 

 This is the Funis pelleiis of Eumph, Herb. Amboin. v., p. 82, whose 

 figure (t. 44, f. 1 *) of the characteristic stem is very fair. Scheffer 

 has figured as T. crispa, a plant with male flowers from the 

 Buitenzorg Gardens (Obs. Bot. iii., p. 71, t. 1), which has a longer 

 and more ovate leaf than the Ceylon plant. The localities for this 

 species given in the Fl, Brit. India — Silhet and Assam to Pegu 

 and Malacca — are in favour of its nativity in Ceylon also. It 

 drops down very long thread-like roots from great heights, like T. 

 cordifolia. 



Cleome tenella L. f. — On the dry sandy coast at Puttalam and 

 Chilaw, W. coast, Nov. 1881. A slender annual which quickly 

 dries up and disappears. It occurs in similar places on the 

 Carnatic ; has been found in Nubia and Senegal, and doubtless 

 occurs in the intermediate desert regions. 



Cerastium glomeratum Thuill. — This familiar little plant is 

 common about Nuwana Eliya, 6200 ft., and may be native, as 

 appears to be considered the case in similar cases in India. 

 Thwaites, however, thought it introduced with grass seed, like so 

 many other European weeds in the mountains of Ceylon, and 

 omitted it from the body of the ' Enumerafcio.' 



CaJophyUum eJatum Bedd. ? — To this I refer, with some doubt, a 

 tree of which the leaves were sent to me in 1882, from the 

 Devilane Forest, near Batticalon, by Capt. Walker, Forester for the 

 Eastern Province. It has been entered imder this name, in 

 Mr. Vincent's Keport on the Forests of Ceylon (Part i., pars. 106 

 and 147), the native name being given as " Tombu-kata." We 

 have the tree also in the gardens at Peradeniya, but I have not 

 seen flowers or fruit. Beddome's species was first named in 

 ' Trans. Linn. Soc.,' xxv. p. 212, and is described and figured in 

 his ' Fl. Sylvatica,' t. 2, and his Forest Keport for 1863-64. It 

 yields the Von spars of commerce. In the ' Flora Brit. Ind.' it is 

 regarded as a variety of C. tomentosum Wight, which is a very 

 common species in the lower districts of Ceylon, and one of those 

 called " Kiua " by the Sinhalese. The leaves of the Batticalon 

 tree are, however, very much longer and narrower, with a rounder 

 base and more horizontal secondary nerves. It may be the 

 C. awjustifoliam Roxb., from Penang, of which nothing seems to be 

 known. 



Vatica (ibsciira Trim., n, sp. 



Pavonia glechomifolia A. Eich. — This has been recorded for 



* Linnaus has quoted this figured correctly, but has caused confusion by 

 accidentally giving the name as Funis quadrangularis, p. 83, which is fig. 2 on 

 the same plate. 



