CXXX, TACCACE.B. / o5 



top of a long naked scape ; outer bracts 2-6 (usually 4), leafy and 

 broad, forming an iuvolucre, sometimes colored; inner bracts (bracteoles) 

 under the pedicels many, long, filiform, pendent. Perianth usually 

 lurid, superior, urceolate or subcarapanulate, biseriately 6 - lobed. 

 Stamens 6, aduate to the perianth-tube or to the base of the perianth- 

 lobes, included; filaments very short, dilated or laterally appendaged 

 at the base, cucullate above the anthers, with 2 ribs or- horns on the 

 inner face ; anthers 2-celled, sessile within the hood. Ovary inferior, 

 3-angular, 1-celled ; ovules many, on 3 parietal placentas, auatropous 

 or almost amphitropous ; style short, included ; stigmas 3, often 

 petaloid, broad, 2-fid, and inflexed like an umbrella over the style. 

 Eruit globose, ovoid, turbinate or oblong, 3-6-ribbed, forming an inde- 

 hiscent berry or rarely a 3-valved capsule. Heeds numerous, ovoid, 

 compressed, longitudinally striate ; albumen hard ; embryo minute. — 

 DiSTJiiB. Species about 10, tropical. 



1. TACCA, Forst. 

 Characters of the Order ; fruit always indehisceut. 



1. Tacca pinnatifida, Forst. Char. Gen. (1778) p. 70, t. 35. 

 Eootstock globose, 6-10 in. in diam. ; rootlets superficial. Leaves 

 1-3 ft. in diam., circular in outline, 3-partite, the segments variously 

 pinnatifid, margins undulate ; petioles 1-3 ft. long, terete, striate, 

 hollow. Scape longer than the petiole, tapering upwards, terete, with 

 pale and dark green stripes, 10-40-flovvered. Flowers pedicellate, 

 drooping, about |- in. across, green tinged with purple ; involucral 

 bracts 6-12, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, recurved, striped with 

 purple ; bracteoles filiform, numerous, very much longer than the 

 bracts. Perianth subglobose, greenish ; lobes margined with purple, 

 connivent. Fruit of the size of a pigeon's egg, yellow, 6-ribbed. Seeds 

 angular. Fl. B. I. v. 6, p. 287 ; G-rah. Cat. p. 230 ; Dalz. & Gibs. 

 p. 276 ; Trim. Fl. Ceyl. v. 4, p. 274 ; Woodr. in Journ. Bomb. Nat. 

 v. 12 (1899) p. 522 ; Watt, Diet. Econ. Prod. v. 6, part 3, p. 402.— 

 Flowers : Sept. Veen. Deva-Jcauda. 



i^a/^-e^^ without locality in Herb. Kew. Konkax : Nimmo ex Graham, common \n 

 the rains, Balzell S( Gibson; Worli and Parel Hills (Bombay), Graham; Kalvan, 

 Woodrow. — DiSTRiB. India (Bengal, Central India, W. Peninsula) ; Ceylon, Malaya, 

 PaciHc Islands, Australia. 



Tacca Imvis, Roxb., which is given in the ' Flora of B. India' as occurring in tho 

 S. Koiikan, on the authority of Nininio, ex Grab. Cat. p. 230, lias not, in my opinion, 

 any claim to be considered an indigenous plant. Dalzell does not mention it in 

 his ' Bombay Flora,' which was written on Graham's Catalogue as a ground-work. 

 Woodrow merely quotes Graham, and no Bombay botanists seem to have found the 

 plant in that Presidency. 



Oedeb CXXXI. DIOSCOEEACE^. 



Large, usually climbing herbs with generally a thick fleshy tuberous 

 underground rootstock (rarely a cluster of tuberous roots). Leaves 

 alternate or opposite, simple or compound, costate and reticulate ; 

 petioles often angular and twisted at the base. Flowers small, usunlly 

 1-sexual, spicate or racemose, dioecious or monoecious in separate spikes, 



3d2 



