392 Amarantacece . 



p. viorinda folia, Br. {P. alba. Span.), is the ' Lettuce Tree ' much 

 cultivated on the coast for its bright greenish-yellow foliage, and called 

 Lechchai Kedda or Chandi by the Tamils in the north. The male tree 

 has the leaves much darker green, and is therefore not much grown. 

 Kurz. (For. Fi. Burm. ii. 279) gives this as native on the seashore of the 

 Andaman Is. It is also found in Nicobar Is. apparently, and extends 

 throughout the Malay and Pacific Archipelagos as a littoral plant. It 

 very rarely flowers here. The young whitish leaves are eaten by the 

 Sinhalese, and called ' Wata-banga-kola.' 



CIII.—AMARANTACE.^. 



Herbs or undershrubs, 1. opp. or alt., without stip., fl. small, 

 bisexual (rarely unisexual), sessile or nearly so, in clusters or 

 spikes, with a scarious bract and 2 small bractlets at base; 

 perianth-leaves 5, distinct, more or less scarious, persistent, 

 sometimes spinescent, imbricate; stam. 1-5, opp. pcr.-leaves, 

 fil. free or connate at base or with 5 alt. staminodes ; ov. 

 superior, i -celled, with i or several erect basal ovules on 

 capillary funicles; fruit with a membranous pericarp (utricle), 

 enclosed in persistent pcr.-leaves, usually indehiscent; seed 

 solitary, erect, with the annular or horseshoe-shaped embryo 

 curved round mealy endosperm. 



L. alternate (see also under 9). 



Seeds several i- Celosi.v. 



.Seeds solitary. 

 Fl. bisexual. 



Fruit with circumscissile dehiscence . . 2. Allmania. 



Fruit indehiscent 3- DiGERA. 



Fl. unisexual 4- Amarantus. 



L. opposite. 

 Anth. 2-celled. 



Perfect fl. surrounded by deformed ones. 



Staminodes 5 5- Cvathula. 



Staminodes o 6. PUPALIA. 



All. fl. perfect. 

 Staminodes o. 



Stam. 5 7- PSILOTRICHUM. 



Stam. 2 8. Nothos.i-:rua. 



Staminodes 5. 



Bractlets not spinous, sep. herbaceous . 9. AliRUA. 

 Bractlets spinous, sep. hard and stiff . 10. AchvrantHES. 

 Anth. i-celled .... . . 11. Ai.tkrnanthera. 



All the 25 species are found in the drj' region, of which this Family is 

 rather characteristic, and 14 of them are confined to it. The rest extend 



