ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY, 



159 



k no difficulty In distinguishing them when fruit are available, and when flowers only 

 are found their very distinct habits furnish good distinctive marks, the true Jasmines beS 



nearly all twiners with smooth leaves ; Nyctanthes erect shrubs with very rimd rough ones? 

 and Schrebera a tree with a sniooth pinnate foliage. The discrimination of the^ specie^ 

 ofJmminum is however often difficult While naming those belonging to my Herbarium 

 I found It a convenient plan to group those with very short blunt calyx lobes, most of which 

 I found had two ovules m each cell. The common Jasminum auriculatum may be taken 

 as he type of this group but some others are also distinguished by the ovaries having two 

 ovules in each cell. By this character therefore the genus might be conveniently divided into 

 t«;o sections. De CandoUe groups them according to their foliage, Unifoliolata, Trifoliolata, 

 Pinnahfoha, and Altermfoha. The first of these divisions is occasionally apt to mislead 

 owing to the abortion of the lateral leaflets, an example of which is presented by J. brevilohum 

 a trifoliolate species but placed m DCs first section. The ovary has four ovules, the lobes 

 of the calyx are very short and blunt, and the lateral leaflets small, as in J. aurkulatum 

 whence it may almost be viewed as an alpine variety of that species. ' 



The following extract from my Spicilegium Neilgherrense exhibits, in a few words the 

 results I obtamed while examining the ovaries of a number of species of this genus 'and 

 leads to the conclusion that further investigations of the same kind are required towards 

 the elucidation of the rest of the genus. 



"The bulk of this (generic) character is copied from De CandoIIe, but to render it appli- 

 cable to the genus, as I have found it in India, it was necessary to introduce a few words regard- 

 ing the ovary and ovules. In the original 'Ovarium bilobum,' is all that is said regarding that 

 important organ, and that little is not in accordance with my experience, the ovary not 

 being two-Iobed, when the flower drops, though the fruit, owing to a peculiarity in its mode 

 of growth, afterwards becomes two-Iobed. The number and position of the ovules, as. here 

 stated, differ from the generally received character. In Endlicher's Genera Plantarum it is 'said, 

 'Uvula in loculis solitaria a basi dissepiment! adscendentia anatropa.' This is only partly right 

 as I have found many with 2 ovules in each cell, and one, perhaps accidentally, with three; some 

 with them positively pendulous, from near the apex of the cell, and several with them lateral, 

 but attached above the middle, so as to be in truth descending not ascending ovules, but 

 few indeed, if any, really erect; that therefore I consider of rare occurrence, as compared with 



the other structure." 



. '^^^ genus Nyctanthes, consisting of a single, well-known species, does not require further 

 notice here. Schrebera^ being comparatively rare, is less known. Roxburgh's description is 

 imperfect in some points and his figure erroneous in one essential particular and deficient in 



Otuei'S. Hfl nnPC! nn^. \rw (ivai-nnlo rloo/iriKo flio cf PiK^tnvo i\9 +l>o tw^vtr rki. oaaA feoresents 



loculicidal 



He does not, for example, describe the structure of the ovary or seed, 



the latter in the mature open capsule as erect, and does not clearly show the .^.v.^. 



dehiscence and contrary partition. According to my specimens, I find the corolla quincuneial 



the ovary 2-cened with 4 ovules, pendulous from the top of the partition in 



in aestivation, 



each. The seed are similarly pendulous with the wing directed towards the base of the cap- 

 sule. The capsule, as mentioned by Roxburgh, splits from the apex into 2 valves, through 

 the middle of the partition, each valve bearing a half, as in Acanthaceoe. The seed is furnished 

 "^ith a knife-shaped wing at the end, remote from the hilum; the endopleura is thick and 



the cotyledons large, fleshy, deeply furrowed, enclosed in a thin membranous albu- 

 the radicle next the hilum, short. In other respects the description and figure, so 



spongy ; 



nien 



lar as my rather imperfect specimens enable me to judge, are correct. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE 153. 



. Jasminum Gardnerianum (R. W.), shrubby, climbing and twining, glabrous : leaves o^ate, undulated, retuse, 

 pointed; petiol articulated near the base: cymes terminal, panicled; peduncles about the length of the leaves: 

 *^hi^^ ^-toothed, teeth short, acute: corolla about 8-lobed; lobes lanceolate, acute, the length of the tube: anthers 

 Ki ^* connective, produced into a long point: ovules 1 in each cell, amphitropous : beny solitary by abortion, 

 oblong, oval, obtuse at both ends, dark purple. Coimbatore, frequent, climbing over hedges and bushes, flowering 

 tue greater part of the year but in greatest perfection in April and May. Flowere wnite, about the size of those 



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