NEILGHERRY PLANTS, | 7 
LORANTHUS. 
Flowers usually bisexaul. Calyx-tube ovate, rarely turbinate : limb short, truncated or toothed. Petals 
4-8, usually 5-6, either distinct or more or less united : estivation valvular. Stamens as many as the petals 
and opposite to them : filaments adnate to the base of the petals, free at the apex: anthers 2-celled, adnate, or 
erect, or versatile. Style filiform. Stigma simple, capitate or turbinate. Berry roundish, ovate, or oblong, or 
turbinate, 1-celled, 1-seeded, usually crowned with the limb of the calyx. Shrubs usually parasitical, rarely 
growing on the ground. Leaves epposite or alternate, entire, usually thick and coriaceous. Flowers spiked, 
or racemose, or panicled. 
The Neilgherry species of this genus are numerous and individually abundant. How many species there 
may be is very doubtful, but my impression is, that as many as 20 are natives of these Hills, though I have 
not yet collected so many. Every wood about the Hills abounds with them, and scarcely a tree grows but is 
subject to their attacks. In their general appearance they greatly vary ; some are stout, erect growing shrubs, 
some slender, twiggy and pendulous, some with bright foliage, at first of the richest crimson tints, while others 
are of the most dull and unassuming. The colour and appearance of the fl equally vary ; some are large 
and richly coloured, others smaller, but still conspicuous for the richness of their colouring ; while others are 
the dullest imaginable, and as if to conceal the little colour they have, are clothed with dirty whitish or tawny 
coloured hairs. Many attain a great size, and by their drain on the vital fluids of their support, speedily induce 
the premature decay consequent on deficient nourishment. 
Lorantuus NEILGERRENSIs, (W. and A.:)  scurely repand toothed : corolla glabrous, ventricose- 
glabrous : branches terete, young ones obscurely and ly gilbous at the base, equally 5-cleft to beyond the 
bluntly angled : leaves alternate, elliptic-oblong, short- middle: segments cuneate linear, recurved.—/i . and 
8 rat fles at 2. 
ted, ve numerous deep 
the petiole, bearing an umbel of 3-7, very shortly pe- red, almost crimson coloured flowers, which complete- 
dicelled flowers : bractea solitary under the ovary and ly coverthe branches, while the young leaves on the 
i cal 
SV; CAPRIFOL TACK ER 
HO E TRIBE, 
This is a small, but to the Horticultural Amateur, an interesting family, as including 
within its narrow limits the Elder, the Honeysuckle, the Tinus and Lauristinus, Guelder, 
Rose, and numerous other ornaments of the shrubbery and arbour. They are the more es- 
teemed as, being for the most part natives of temperate climates, they are hardy enough to 
pear the winters of England. In its geographical distribution this family occupies a wide 
range, extending from Lapland within the arctic circle, where Linnea borialis is indigenous 
to New Zealand, nearly 50° South of the equator, the native country of the genus Alseuosmia; 
and all round the world from the Western shores of America, to the Eastern ones of China 
and Japan. But while thus extensively inhabiting the temperate regions of both hemispheres, 
they are of rare occurrence within the tropics; except where, as in the instance of these 
mountains, local circumstances produce a temperate climate. 
In Nepaul and the Hymalayas generally, they are numerous; upwards of 20 species 
being described from the valley of Nepaul alone; thence they extend Southward to Ceylon, 
and Eastward to Japan. On the Neilgherries 6 species are indigenous, two of Lonicera, and 
four of Viburnum: thereby indicating by their vegetable productions, the extra-tropical 
ch aracter of the climate of these Hills. 
