a 
Bryxa] HY DROCHARITACE. 175 
dragging the young fertilized female flower to within a small distance 
of the muddy bottom of the water to ripen. : 
Abundant within the area. DisTR1IB. :—More or less throughout India 
and in Ceylon, extending westwards to Spain, and in most warm 
regions of the World. 
4. BLYXA, Thouars ; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 660. 
Annual, submerged, tufted, scapigerous herbs, Leaves linear, 
acute, entire or minutely serrulate. Flowers 2-sexual or dicecious ; 
scapes long or short ; males pedicelled, several in a tubular 2-toothed 
spathe, long-peduncled ; 2-sexual or fem. flowers solitary, sessile 
within a tubular 2-toothed spathe. Sepals 3, linear. Petals 3, 
linear, longer than the sepals. Mae flowers: Stamens normally 
3-seriate, 1 or more often reduced to staminodes ; anthers narrow, 
erect. Pistillodes 3, slender. Frm. flowers solitary. Staminodes 
none or minute. Ovary linear, 1-celled, beaked ; style very short ; 
stigmas 3, filiform,ovulesmany. wit linear, included in the ribbed 
narrow ventricose spathe; pericarp membranous. Seeds many, 
oblong, smooth or tubercled, often tailed—Species 7 or 8, in Trop. 
Asia, Madagascar, Australia and in Sumatra. 
Leaves not serrulate; flowers diccious; 
stamens 8 ; : ; 3 ; . Ll. B. Roxburghii. 
Leaves serrulate ; flowers 2-sexual; stamens 3 2. B. oryzetorum. 
1.B. Roxbarghii, Rich. in Mem. Inst. Fr. (1881) 77, t. 5; F. 
B. I. V., 660 ; Prain Beng. Pl. 996 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb. ii, 670. Vailis- 
neria octandra, Roxb. ; Fl. Ind. iii, 572—Vern. Syala (Beng.). 
A submerged tufted annual. Leaves radical, 8-24 in. long, linear, entire, 
broad at the base, finely acuminate at the apex. Flowers diwcious, 
white. Mate flowers : Scape straight, as long as or longer than the 
leaves. Stamens 8; filaments unequal, shorter than the petals. 
Fem. flowers : Scape shorter and thicker than in the males. Fruit 
2-4 in. long. Seeds y; in. long, distinctly tuberculate, shortly tailed. 
I have seen no specimens from the Upper Gangetic Plains, but being 
widely distributed in Bengal in still water it has in all probability been 
overlooked. It is said to be plentiful throughout the Bombay Pre- 
sidency, and is found also in Malay Peninsula and in Australia. 
