NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 45 
ASCLEPIADE:. 
This order, which is one of great extent, and so clearly defined by nature that, except 
in the case of a few outlying genera, it can scarcely be mistaken, was separated from 
Jussieu’s order, Apocynee, by Mr. Brown. The few genera known to Jussieu were 
combined by him with a number of others out of which three other orders, Apocynacee, 
Loganiacee, and Theophrastee have since been constituted, so that the order, as left by 
him, included the elements of four orders. Each of these has, within the last few years, 
been largely augmented, but more especially Asclepiadece and Apocynacee, some of the 
larger genera of which include nearly as many species as the whole compound order, 
as known to Jussieu, did. The number of genera appertaining to it, defined by him, 
amounted to 29 only, and these not all true congeners, Theophrasta, which now forms 
the type of a new order, being one of them. Lindley, in his Vegetable Kingdom, gives a 
list of 141 genera of Asclepiadece, and states the number of known species at 910, but 
which may now be set down at 1,000, or perhaps many more. Of that number, probably 
about one-fourth are natives of India. 
Generally speaking, it is tropical in its habits, nearly all its species being either 
altogether tropical or confined to the warmer regions on either side of that zone; hence, 
I presume, their paucity on the more elevated regions of these hills. On the lower slopes, 
‘where they enjoy a warmer climate, they are more numerous. Within the limits indicated, 
Asia, Africa, America, and Australia, all claim many species as their own, and a few 
even extend as far north as Europe. In India, they are met with in all situations, equally 
on the coast and on the tops of the highest mountains; on the banks of marshy rice- 
fields and arid stony ground; exposed to the full blaze of the sun’s rays, and in the 
Shady forest. Many of them are large twining shrubs with milky juice, but an exten- 
sive group, the Stapeliew, is composed of square-stemmed, succulent, herbaceous, leafless 
plants, with acidulous, watery juices. The shrubby, twining forms are usually furnished 
with more or less succulent, opposite leaves, but several are leafless, or nearly so. It is 
however in the reproductive organs of this family that its most marked peculiarity exists, 
that by which it is distinguished from all the other orders of plants. 
Like other dichlamydeous plants, the flowers of Asclepiadee have the usual calyx 
and corolla, the latter varying much in form in different genera, as will be at once seen 
by comparing Ceropegia with Brachylepis, or with the universally known Calotropis, 
the old Asclepias gigantea, so very common on the plains. 
They have also, like other plants, stamens and a pistil, but both differing from the 
usual form, and presenting a structure peculiar to this tribe. The stamens have, more- 
over, in the plurality of species, a series of bodies, varying in shape, attached to them 
designated the staminal crown. These are very conspicuous in Cerepegia elegans, less 
distinct in the other species. And, lastly, the angles of the stigma are furnished with 
another series of bodies, designated stigmatic corpuscles. These are generally small, 
bright shining, brownish-coloured, oblong bodies, easily seen with the naked eye on look- 
ing closely into the flower. 
The stamens, unlike those of most other plants have flattened filaments, which adhere 
by their edges, forming a tube round the ovary and style ee are, apparently, without 
