PAPILIONACEiE. 113 



Nearly 300 species, scattered over all the warmer parts of 

 the world, but more especially South Africa. 



India alone has over 40 species, most of them growing on the 

 plains Indigo, by far the most important of blue dyes, was, until the 

 last decade or two, obtained exclusively in ndia from the cultivated 

 / linctoria and /. encta, by fermentation of the stalks and leaves. 

 Hence Latin name indiciim for the colour and hence also itidigo Ura 

 i^fero = I bear). 

 Small trailing plant with young parts almost black, three-foliate 



leaves and bright red flowers I. pedicellata. 



Shrub with pinnate leaves and racemes of pink flowers . . . 



I. pulchella. 



Indigof era pedicellata Wight and Arnott ; Wight Cat. 

 868!; F.B.L ii 95, XVII 15. Rootstock perennial; 

 branches very slender, wiry, black-pubescent on the 

 younger parts, trailing on the ground but not rooting. 

 Petioles % to J4 inch ; leaflets three, in the larger form 

 occasionally four, ^ to ^ inch long, elliptic obtuse, 

 covered with black glands. Flowers crowded six to 

 twelve, in short corymbs : pedicels Ye inch : bracts linear 

 1/16 inch. Calyx 1/12 inch with long teeth. Corolla red. 

 Pod Ya inch straight, even, sharply pointed, t. 84. 

 Wight Sp. Nilg. t. 56. 



Very common especially on gravel paths and exposed spots. 

 Pulneysnear Kodaikanal. Nilgiris. ^75^;^ 687, 1844. Bourne 

 61, 255. 



In ^reneral habit this species is not unlike the very common 

 I enneaphylla L. of the plains, but differs in its three-foliate leaves and 

 less crow-ded flowers. The floral mechanism to secure polliaaUon by insects 

 is also ver>' similar. See Pres. Coll. Bot. Bull. No. 11. 



There appear to be two forms distinct enough perhaps to be called 

 varieties In the smaller the leaflets are not more than one-third by one- 

 ei^Tth inch and very black below like the young branches, and the flowers 

 onVfourth inch bright red. In the larger the leaflets are not less than ha J 

 by one-fourth inch when fully expanded, there is much less black on them 

 and on the branches, and the flowers are considerably larger about half 

 inch and pink rather than red. It is as if the same quantity of black and 

 of red colour were distributed over larger areas. This larger form is the 

 type of Wight and Arnoit's species. Wight Cat. 868. 



Indigofera pulchella Roxburgh ; F.B.L ii lOi, XVII 37- 

 Shrub, 4 to 6 feet with trunk up to 4 inches thick at the 



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