£28 Hydroc/iaridece. {Halophila. 



upright in the water ; they are almost precisely similar to those of 

 Cymodocea serru/ata, and I am doubtful whether the Weligama plant 

 may not be that species. In Syst. Cat. Ceyl. 1. c. I have also inadvertently 

 referred Thwaites' specimens of the Cymodocea to this. The Jaffna 

 specimens were in good fruit (in February), and thus readily identified. 

 During the S.W. monsoon this is washed ashore in large quantities at 

 Jaffna, and is extensively used as a manure for cocoanuts and also for 

 paddy, as well as to slacken the action of the wood fires in burning the 

 coral-stone for lime. — Trhiien. 



7. HAIiOPKXIiA, Thouars. 

 Submerged, perennial, marine herbs; rootstock slender, 

 creeping, branched ; 1. in pairs at the nodes of the rootstock, 

 or on short branches, with a hyaline amplexicaul sheath at 

 the base, oval oblong or linear ; fl. very small, monoecious, 

 axillary, in 2-leaved hyaline spathes; male pedicelled ; sep. 3, 

 ovate, imbricate, hyaline; stam. 3, linear, 4-celled, pollen 

 confervoid ; fem. fl, sessile, sep. 3 on the apex of the beak of 

 the ov., most minute ; pet. o ; ov. ovoid, membranous, pro- 

 duced into a slender erect beak, slightly dilated at the apex, 

 i-celled, full of viscous fluid, styles 3, capillary, caducous, 

 ovules few or many, on 3 parietal placentas, anatropous ; 

 fr. a beaked utricle ; seeds globose, translucent, testa mem- 

 branous, minutely tubercled, embryo macropodous with the 

 spirally coiled embryo in a pit at the top. — Sp. 8 or more ; 

 2 in Fl. B. Ind. 



L. ovate or oblong, with branching veins . . . i. H. OVAT.a. 

 L. linear, without branching veins . . . . 2. H. Beccarii. 



I. K. ovata, Gaiidich in Freyc. Voy. Bot. 430 (1826). 

 TJialassia sfipiilaccd, Thw. Enum. 332 (non Koen.). H. ovalis., Hk. f , 

 Trim. Syst. Cat. 86. C. P. 3055. 



Fl. P.. Ind. V. 663. Griff. Ic. PI. Asiat. t. 161 C, f. 2 {Diplanthera). 

 Balfour in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinb. xiii. (1879), P- -9o> t. 8. 



Rootstock filiform, much branched, branches often forming 

 intricate masses, clothed with capillary root-hairs; 1. solitary 

 or in pairs at the nodes of the rootstock, 2-2^ in., from broadly 

 oval to linear-oblong, glabrous, tip rounded or subacute, veins 

 intermarginal and the costa united by faint reticulating 

 venules; petiole \-2 in., filiform, base hardly dilated; spathes 

 about 7f7 in. long, male peduncled; fem. sessile or peduncled; 

 anth. subsessile, shortly oblong, obtuse; ov. ^V in. long, ovules 

 about 12. 



-Shallow sea water on the coast in the dry region ; rather common. 

 Negombo; Chilaw; Kalpitiya; Jaffna; Aripo; Frincomalie ; Batticaloa ; 

 Mannar. Fl. July-September. 



