‘Pupatta.] AMARANTACEZ. 19 
Stamens 5; staminodes truncate, fimbriate. Uvtricle oblong, enclosed 
in the hardened perianth. Seed subcylindrical, with a truncate apex, 
brown. 
A very common weed of way-sides and waste places all over the area. 
Distars.: Throughout India and in Ceylon, extending to Trop. Asia, 
Africa, Australia and America. The plant is used medicinally for 
various purposes. There appears to be amongst many of the peasant 
people of N. India a general belief in its efficacy as an antidote for 
the poison of snakes and scorpions. Colonel Madden mentions that 
in Oudh the plantyis considered to have a paralizing effect on scor- 
pions. The fruit, when ripe, becomes easily detached from the rhachis, 
carrying with it the hardened persistent perianth to which are 
attached the spine-like bracteoles. 
8. PUPALIA, Juss. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. iv, 723. 
Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite, petioled. Flowers 
fascicled in simple or panicled spikes ; fascicles containing one 
perfect flower, and several imperfect ones, the perianth-segments of 
which are reduced to stellately spreading hooked bristles ; bracts and 
bracteoles scarious ; perianth-segments of perfect flowers 5, slightly 
connate below, herbaceous, rarely equal, lanceolate, acuminate, 
3-5-nerved. Stamens 5, filaments slightly connate below, anthers 
2-celled, staminodes none. Ovary ovoid, style slender, stigma 
_ capitellate ; ovule solitary, pendulous from a long basal funicle. 
Fruit an ovoid:membranous utricle, enclosed in the perianth, its 
apex areolate. Seed inverse, lenticular, rostellate, testa thinly 
coriaceous, embryo annular; cotyledons linear, flat, radicle ascending. 
—Species 5, in Asia and Africa. 
P. lappacea, Juss. in. Ann. Mus. Par vi, 132 ; F. B. I. iv, 724; 
Prain Beng. Pl. 872; Cooke Fl. Bomb. it, 497. 
A large straggling undershrub; branches terete, tomentose. Leaves 
petioled, membranous, 14-4 in. long, ovate or elliptic, acute or acumi- 
nate, tomentose on both surfaces, ciliate ; base rounded or shortly 
cuneate ; main nerves many, prominent beneath. Flowers in approxi- 
mate or distant clusters arranged in terminal spikes 4-10 in. long; 
rhachis slender, tomentose ; bracts }-3 in. long, ovate, acuminate, 
pungent, villous ; bracteoles 3? in. long, ovate-oblong, apiculate, con- 
eave. Pertanth 2 in. long. Sepdls lanceolate, aristate, 3-nerved, 
densely white-woolly. Sterile flowers reduced to a number of un- 
