28 Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 



flowers, and collected into ovoid or globose clusters, surrounded by 

 several large leafy bracts. Involucre-proper compressed, its component 

 bracts oblong, acute, about 8, dry, stiff, unequal, alternately fiat and 

 conduplicate ; receptacle naked. Flowers all equally 4-lobed, and cleft 

 on one side, and with the lobes spreading in a somewhat palmate 

 manner. A^ithers obtusely sagittate at the base. Style-arms subulate. 

 Cypselas truncate, 10-ribbed ; bristles of pappus few, rigid, shining, 

 slender and dilated below or chaffy. — Disteib. 10 or 12 species, 

 chiefly tropical American — one cosmopolitan. 



Elephantopus scaber, Linn. Sp. PI, 814. Stems dichotomous, 

 from a few inches to 2 feet high, terete, finely strigose. Leaves 

 membranous, the radical ones obovate, oblong to elliptic-oblong, taper- 

 ing to the short petiole, the edges dentate or crenate, up to 6 in. in 

 length and 1-25 to 2-5 in. broad ; the cauline few, smaller, sessile, both 

 sets scabrid on the upper surface and finely strigose on the lower ; 

 main-nerves 6 to 8 pairs in the cauline, more numerous in the radical 

 leaves, all slightly prominent on the lower surface. Collective heads 

 hemispheric, -5 to -75 in. in diam., solitary, terminal, on long peduncles. 

 Bracts of the conjoined heads 3, leaf-like, about -5 in. broad, broadly 

 ovate or reniform, apiculate, nervose and pubescent behind ; bracts of 

 the involucre-proper shining, glabrous ; pappus of 5 shining tuberculate 

 bristles, dilated at the base. Wall. Cat. 2979 ; DC. Prod. V. 86 ; Eoxb. 

 Fl. Ind. III. 445 ; Don Prod. 169 ; Wight Ic. 1086 ; Clarke Comp. 

 Ind. 28 ; Hook. fil. PI. Br. Ind. III. 242 ; Prain Bengal Plants, 590. 



In all the provinces, in cultivated places. — Distrib. In most tropical 

 countries. 



3. Adenostemma, Forst. 



Herbs, glandular-pubescent or glabrous. Leaves mostly opposite, 

 petiolate. Heads homogamous, in lax corymbose cymes ; involucre 

 campanulate ; its bracts numerous, sub-2-seriate, narrow, herbaceous, 

 sometimes connate ; receptacle fiat, naked. Corollas all equal, tubular, 

 regular, with short tube and campanulate 5-toothed limb. Anthers 

 truncate, with glandular apiculus, their bases obtuse. Style-arms 

 elongate, dilated near the apex. Cypselas obtuse, 5-ribbed, glandular ; 

 pappus of 3 to 5 short rigid, often clavate hairs, joined at their bases 

 by a narrow ring. — Distrib. Species 5 or 6 American, 1 cosmopolitan. 



Adenostemma viscosum, Forst. Char. Gen. 20. An erect, rarely 

 decumbent annual, slender or robust, glabrous ; pubescent or viscidly 

 pubescent. Leaves membranous, sessile or petiolate, opposite or the 

 upper alternate, from linear to broadly ovate, acute sub-acute cuneate 

 or cordate at the base, the edges serrate crenate or entire, the upper 

 surface usually smooth but sometimes rugose ; length from 2 to 6 in. ; 

 238 



