NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 13 
Polygala has had a large share. When DeCandolle published the first volume of 
his Prodromus in 1824, he described 164 species, 30 of which were imperfectly known. In 
1842 Walpers, in his supplement to that work, enumerates 120, only twelve of which had 
been referred to in the original work. 
This order is as universal in the forms it assumes as in its distribution, for here we 
find the minute Salomonia not three inches high, and the umbrageous Xanthochymus, a good 
sized tree, besides many large shrubs. Among the Polygala’s proper, in like manner, we have 
some not exceeding a few inches, and rising thence step by step through all grades to the 
P. ariilata, here figured, which I have seen in the sheltered woods of the Neilgherries near- 
ly 20 feet high. The Indian Polygalas except the last are for the most part small, having 
little beauty to recommend them to the notice of the florist, many of those from the Cape are, 
on the contrary, most showy, and are found in many of the Hill gardens under the name of 
CapeBroom and such like misnomers. One of the finest has large Lilac coloured flowers. The 
one here figured might, I think, be advantageously added to the short list of cultivated species. 
A few species only of this order have been made available to human wants. The 
snake root (Polygala Senega) of America and the Polygala crotalarioides of the Himalays 
have both got the credit, among the natives of their respective countries, of being an antidote 
to the poison of the snakes. Most of the species are bitter and probably, more or less laxa- 
tive as is the case with P. amara which was formerly occasionally used in medicine but is now 
held in small repute. 
POLYGALA.— Milk wort. 
Sepals 5, persistent, the a/e large and petaloid. Petals 3; their claws all united with the stamini- 
ferous tube, the lower one (carina) keel-shaped, the two additional ones abortive. Stamens united intoa 
tube at the base, which iscleft in front : anthers opening by apore. Ovarium 2-celled ; ovules solitary, 
pendulous from the apex of the cell. Capsule 2-locular, loculicide, compressed. Seeds pendulous from the 
apex of the cells, pubescent, with a earunculate arillus at the hilum: albumen abundant, fleshy.—Shrubs 
or herbaceous plants. Flowers arranged in terminal or axillary racemes.— W. and A, Prod. 
This genus though, so abounding in species that, 1 believe, not fewer than 300 are to be found in 
Europeau Herbaria, demands but a brief notice here. It includes probably upwards of 30 Indian species 
nearly all of which except P. ariliata are annuals or small herbaceous perennials without either beauty or 
properties to recommend them to notice—several are found on the hills, some procumbent and so hid among 
the grass that Botanic eyes are required to detect them, two or three others are annual, appearing during 
the rains among the long grass and about the borders of corn fields. The flowers of all these are small, 
varying in-colour, yellow, pale pink or approaching to lilac. 
Poryeata armnata (Ham.:) shrubby. branckes A handsome ramous leafy shrub. varying from 6 to 
pubescent : leaves oblong, sormineio®, on longish 12 and even in favourable situations, 20 feet high, 
petioles, puberulous beneath : 
nea age terminal or opposite to the Teaves and about 
s long, droo ee: bracteoles caducous : al@ obovate, 
obioae: tapering downwards,gla ct 9 cata cristate : 
sule F senifarns,. <iaae coriaceous : seeds globose, 
eat than the large pk aw and A, Prod, 
slax, many- found growing in sha ay woods usually near water. 
Flowers yellow racemose, racemes erect or scarcely 
2 - saeciety nerved glabrous or 
slightly puberulous beneath, 
