307 



THE INDIAN SPECIES OF ERIOCAULON 



By P. E 1 . Eyson, M.A., F.L.S., 



Presidency College, Madras. 

 (Continued from p. 266.) 



IV. ANISOPETALAE. 



The male flowers have one petal much enlarged and projecting 

 beyond the floral bracts, covering them : in the larger species this petal 

 has a very conspicious black gland. Otherwise the flowers are normal : 

 the male calyx united as a spathe split in front ; the anthers black ; 

 the female flowers with three more or less boat-shaped sepals and 

 three oblanceolate somewhat hairy petals. The stem is occasionally 

 elongate, and even branched and suffruticescent. The heads are 

 mostly semi-globular, with a convex, sometimes tall, hairy recep- 

 tacle. The leaves are glabrous, and in most species characteristically 

 thick and glossy. The involucral bracts may be dark or pale, even 

 in the same species. 



TABLE OF PROBABLE RELATIONSHIPS. 

 (Sect, simplices) 



odoratum (Malabar) 



longicuspis ceylanicum 



I 



var. subcaulescens 



I 

 atratum cristatum 



I 

 robustum var. caulescens. 



I 

 robustum (typica). 



The series seems to start with E. odoratum, or perhaps E. longi- 

 cuspis, and to connect with the SIMPLICES through E. collinum. 

 It is chiefly developed in Ceylon, where the several species of other 

 authors, subcaulescens, ceylanicum, atratum and sub-glaucum, are dis- 

 tinguishable, if the sheets in the Ceylon Herbarium are rightly so 

 named, by characters of only minor importance, and lead by hardly 

 more than increase in size and general robustness to E. caulescens 

 Hook. f. ; which again differs only in being branched from E. robustum 



