NOTES ON THE FLOKA OF CEYLON. 239 



Hab. Near the foot of Doluwe Kande, north of Kurunegala, 

 N. W. Province, May, 1884. 



A small tree with very tough and fibrous inner bark. Branch- 

 lets thickened at the nodes. Leaves 4-6 in. long, deep apple-green, 

 paler beneath. Flowers large, 1^ in. across, the tube of corolla 

 ■| in. Coronal scales a darker colour than the corolla-lobes, and 

 arranged thus : — The 6 outermost trifid ones opposite the corolla- 

 lobes and adherent to them for their lower one-third, the 5 inner 

 trifid ones alternate with these and immediately outside the sta- 

 mens ; the 10 undivided ones in pairs between the bases of 

 the stamens.* The flowers, when quite dry, become dull 

 bluish grey ; both they and the leaves, when fresh, are full of a 

 milky juice. 



This is no doubt the plant doubtfully referred to by Thwaites 

 (Enum. p. 193) as IF. Bothii, var. puherida. The specimen (C. P. 

 1837) is from Dambulla, collected by Gardner. In the ' Fl. Brit. 

 Ind.' (iii., p. 653) W. Ruthil G. Don is placed as a variety under 

 W. tmctorin, but neither is given for Ceylon. Our plant does not 

 well agree with Eoth's description (Nov. PI. Sp., p. 121), but it 

 ought perhaps to form no more than a subspecies of W. tinctoria. 

 From the ordinary forms of that species (which is met with in 

 Ceylon in cultivation only) it differs remarkably in the colour of 

 the flowers (which are always white in W. tinctoria), and in the 

 more slender habit, form of the leaves, &c. 



The change of colour undergone by the flower before withering 

 is analogous to that of W. tomentosa. In that species the corolla 

 (which is thick, fleshy and brittle, and has an unpleasant scent) is 

 at first pale dull greenish-ochre (quite green externally), the corona 

 alone being salmon-coloured, but soon the whole changes into a 

 dull inky-purple. Hence the discrepancies in descriptions as to 

 colour alluded to in 'Fl. Brit. India.' In this species the coronal 

 scales are coherent, forming a fleshy, truncate, somewhat 5-lobed, 

 short tube or ring. 



Tylophora flava Trim. ■ — Absolutely glabrous in all parts ; 

 leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, cordate at base, rounded and suddenly 

 acuminate at apex, thick and fleshy, rather glaucous, yellowish 

 green, with paler conspicuous veins ; petiole very short, without 

 glands ; peduncles very short, usually dichotomous ; flowers on 

 slender pedicels, crowded on the contracted branches so as to be 

 sub-umbellate in axils of very small acicular bracts ; calyx-segments 

 long, lanceolate, quite glabrous or occasionally with a few bristly 

 hairs ; corolla-lobes ovate-oblong, subacute, pale greenish yellow, 

 the throat stained Avith purple ; coronal processes adnate to the 

 gynostegium at the base, and there broad and fleshy, tapering 

 above into thick triangular incurved points reaching the stigmatic 

 table ; fruit-carpels spreading in a line, each about 3:^ in. long, 

 linear, tapering to a blunt point, cylindrical, smooth. 



* In IViifihtia zeylanica there is a further (-Ith) row of these bodies, con- 

 sisting of five more pairs of erect undivided filaments, just outside and opposite 

 to the stamens. In W. anriustifulia Thw. there is but one row of live tritid and 

 laciniate bodies alternate with the petals. 



