84 NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
VERBENACEE. 
‘This is a large and, as it now stands in Botanical works, ahighly complex order. We 
find among its species minute procumbent herbs and gigantic trees, flowers so minute that a 
high magnifier is required for their examination, and others large and showy, some delight- 
fully fragrant, such as the garden Verbena (V. Peruviana) and many altogether scentless, 
many simply white or cream-coloured, and others deeply tinged with blue or purple. In 
their inflorescence and floral structure, we find the species of this order exhibiting similar 
variations; the flowers being capitate, spicate, cymose, corymbose, panicled or umbelled, 
and the ovaries with erect or pendulous ovules. No wonder Botanists have found this 
a difficult order to deal with, and have shown little inclination to grapple with its hetero- 
geneous combinations. Apparetitly owing to this cause, Schaner’s monograph in De Can- 
dolle’s Prodromus seems, so far as I am aware, to be the first original composition of the 
kind. Walper’s had already done good service in collecting together all that had been pre- 
viously published, but his article differs from Schauer’s in being mainly a compilation, not 
an autograph work, derived from the examination of original materials 
In its botanical relations, this order seems to take its place very naturally between 
Borraginee and Labiatee, the former almost passing into it at several points, while it 
seems nearly to pass into Labiate, at others, but these so delicately that it requires a 
Botanist to see them. 
In its distribution it is more tropically disposed than either of the two orders named, 
a few only of its species extending so far north as Europe. In the warmer regions of 
Asia and America, they are most abundant, but a few are found in Africa and Australia. 
In India they are rather numerous, and some of them of very large size, the teak tree 
being, however, by far the most conspicuous, and valuable. In Bengal about Jubbulpore 
there is another large tree which the late Mr. Griffith has described under the name of 
emigymnia which he considers nearly allied to the teak, and furnishing timber of nearly 
equal value. Besides those there are several other large Indian trees that belong to this 
family, such as Vilix alata, arboria, altissima, all inhabiting the forests covering the slope 
of our higher ranges of hills. The Clerodendrons however are the most showy of our 
Indian Verbenacex, among which the one here represented is about the most conspicuous. 
The Indian Verbenas have but little of the fragrance of the Peruvian one now so com- 
pletely naturalized in the gardens about Ootacamund. The Clerodendron serratum is 
nearly equally deserving of a place in gardens as an ornamental object, since, with a little 
attention to pruning and culture it might be made a truly showy plant though, in its wild 
state, disposed to grow tall and ungainly looking. 
LANTANA. 
Calyx membranaceous, small, obsoletely 3—4-toothed, ciliate, covering the fruit and, with its increase, 
becoming greatly extended and translucent, at length withering away (abolescens). Corolla tubuloso-in- 
ibuliform, slightly swelling upwards; vere are flat, or inclined, somewhat bilabiate, the upper lip 
entire or bifid, the lower one lobed. Stamens 4, inserted within the tube of the corolla, didynamous ; 
anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally. onary 2-celled, cells with a single erect ovule ; style terminal, 
short; stigma Mnear or obliquely capitate. Drupe fleshy or succulent with 2 nuts, shell bai, rough, and 
