214 LXXXTII. UOllAGINACE.f:. 



6. TRICHODESMA, E. Br. 



Erect herbs usually hispid. Leaves opposite or alternate, quite 

 entire. Flowers in racemose terminal unilateral cymes simple or bitid, 

 usually bracteate. Calyx deeply 5-lobed, enlarged in fruit, angled, 

 Aviiioed, or auricled at the base ; lobes imbricate. Corolla-tube broadly 

 cyliiidric or 5-gonous, throat naked or slightly closed by the intrusion 

 of the sinuses ; lobes 5, shortly ovate or lanceolate, often iong-acuminate, 

 contorted, overlapping to the left. [Stamens 5 ; filaments short, broad, 

 and, as well as the connectives, usually hairy on the back ; anthers 

 linear-oblong, acuminate, erect, conniving. Ovary 4-lobed ; ovules sub- 

 horizontal, attached to the inner angles of the cell ; style subtenuinal, 

 slender; stigma small. Fruit pyramidal; nutlets 4, broad, tuberculate 

 or smooth, with or without a raised entire or pectinate or glochidiate 

 maro-in, the lower face almost entirely adnate to the torus, !Seeds sub- 

 orbicular or obovoid ; embryo straight or slightly curved ; cotyledons 

 plano-convex ; radicle short. — Disxrib. Tropical and Subtropical Africa, 

 Asia, and Australia ; species about 10. 



Nutlets with or without a faint entire margin. 



Calyx at flowering time cordate or hastate at the base 1. T. indicum. 



Calyx at flowei-ing time rounded at the base 2. T. zeylanicum. 



Nutlets with a raised white spiny margin on the inner edge. 



Calyx at flowering time truncate at the base 3. T. africanum. 



1. Trichodesma indicum, B. Br. Prodr. (1810) p. 496. Annual, 

 erect, much-branched, very hispid, 6-18 in. high. Leaves l|-4 by \-2 in,, 

 variable, sessile, ovate or oblong, or lanceolate-oblong, obtuse or subacute, 

 clothed above with stiff hairs springing from white (when dry) circular 

 tubercles, less harshly hairy and more or less densely villous beneath, 

 cordate or hirsute at the base. Flowers pale violet-blue, solitary and 

 leaf-opposed and in terminal few-flowered cymes ; pedicels |-| in. long, 

 slender, nodding, hispid. Calyx -jVi i"- lo"g (including the auricles), 

 deeply divided, hispid with long hairs; segments lanceolate, acute, 

 cordate or hastate at the base, connate by the basal auricles. Corolla 

 A in. long ; tube \ inch long ; limb oblique, infundibuliform, thinly 

 hairy inside; lobes i-l in. long (not including the acumen which is 

 sometimes short, sometimes very long), ovate-deltoid, suddenly acu- 

 minate. Cone of anthers large and very pointed, clothed on the back 

 with dense white hairs; anthers included or exserted, with a few hairs 

 at the base, inserted on the corolla-tube, the produced connectives linear, 

 very acute, finally twisted together. Ovary ovoid, acute, tapering into 

 the style, glabrous; style nearly \ in, long. Fruit pyramidal, sub- 

 truncate at the apex, tipped with the persistent style, 4-ribhed ; millets i 

 in. Ion"-, ovoid, smooth and polished on the back, rugose on the inner 

 face, not or scarcely margined, bluish-white or nearly white when fully 

 ripe' leavinc^ 5 deep ovate pits on the membranous axis when falling. 

 Fl. B, I, V. 4, p, 153; Grab, Cat, p, 134; Dalz, & Gibs, p. 173 ; Wight, 

 Illustr. t. 172 ; Trim. Fl. Ceyl. v. 3, p, 201 : AVoodr. in Journ, Bomb, 

 Nat. V. 12 (1898) p. 170 ; AVatt, Diet. Econ. Prod, v, 6, part 4, p. 80.— 

 Flowers : Aug.-Oct. A^ern. Chota-lcaljta. 



Tolerably common througliout llie rre>idenry. Kon-kan : Stnrl-s\, Lnu-\ ; K,ily.\n. 

 Woodrow. Deican : coiiunoii, (ii!':^o)i ex Graham; Vooim, CooAr l, Woadnnr, luina<le\ 



