192 



THE INDIAN SPECIES OF ERIOCAULON 



By P. F. Fyson, M.A., F.L.S., 



Presidency College, Madras. 



(Continued from p. 150,) 



I. SETACEAE. 



Submerged plants. Stem slender elongate and often branched, 

 bearing leaves for several inches. Leaves very slender, or capillary, 

 1-5 in. long. Head numerous, 1/10 to 1/16 in., on slender peduncles 

 usually in a terminal umbel, but often also from more than one node. 

 Receptacle glabrous or hairy and chaffy with adherent bracts. Sepals 

 of the male more or less free. All parts of both sexes in threes ; 

 stamens 6 ; anthers black. 



Though placed first for convenience because differing from the rest of 

 the genus in their very pronounced aquatic habit and elongated stem, the 

 species which comprise this group should almost certainly be regarded 

 not as primitive, but as aquatic offshoots from the original stock, to which 

 the next group, SIMPLICES, are nearest. 



A difficult group to work out in old collections, the heads and the flowers 

 being small, and some confusion has crept in with regard to the species. 

 Linnaeus in Sp. PJ. Ed. 1. 1753 p. 87 founded E. setaceum on an Indian plant 

 giving as synonym Eandolia malabarica and quoting also Rheed. Mai. 

 [Hortus Malabaricus] 63. He mentioned only the 6-angled stem and capillary 

 leaves. In Fl. Zeylanica (17-17) p. 50 he had mentioned in addition the mem- 

 braneous sheath and submerged roots.* Steudel in Syn. PI. Cyp. (1855) took 

 this species to be the one with glabrous floral bracts, that being the common 

 Malabar plant. Koerniche in Linnaea XXVII p. 603 took the hairy species 

 as Linnaeus' E. setaceum and founded E. intermedium for the glabrous form on 

 a sheet of Wight's, No. 2369. He considered that Linnaeus had been in error in 

 quoting Rheede's figure for E. setaceum. Hooker in F.B.I, appears to have 

 reverted to Steudel's conception of the glabrous plant for E. setaceum for he 

 described the floral bracts as black and glabrous and founded the new species 

 E. capillus-naiadis for the hairy heads. He also identified forms with glabrous 

 heads and glabrous, not villous, receptacles as E. bifistiiloseum Van Huerck 

 a West African species. Ruhland I.e. reinstated the hairy heads as of E. 

 setaceum Linn., reducing Hooker's E. capillus-naiadis to that species, and 

 restored E. intermedium Koern., at the same time confining E. bifistuloseum 

 Van Huerck to West Africa. I find young heads often glabrous, though 

 hairy when fully developed, and that it is impossible to determine with 

 certainty whether the receptacle is grabrous or not, for it is often covered with 

 short scales. I find also that the female petals vary in regard to the position of 

 the gland, which may be well inside the margin as with other species or on it. 



It seems however probable that there are in India only two species. E. 

 setaceum L. with hairy and E. intermedium Koern. with glabrous bracts, and 

 that other differences are casual variations. I have not seen Linnaeus type 



* I am indebted to Col. Gage, I.M.S., Director of the Botanical Survey, for 

 the copy of Linnaeus' descriptions, etc. from which this is taken. 



