262 LILIACEE. * boo 
ripens from December to February.—Distris.: Outer ranges of 
» Himalaya in Kumaon ; also in Bengal, Behar, Central India, Ceylon 
_and Burma. The stems yield a strong fibre sometimes used for 
making brushes, and the thinner stems as tooth-sticks. 
3. GLORIOSA, Linn. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 358. 
Climbing herbs with leafy stems springing from a naked tuberous 
rootstock. Leaves alternate opposite or 3-nately whorled, lanceo- 
late, strongly nerved and with a long spiral tendril-like apex. 
Flowers large, showy, solitary, axillary, pedicels reflexed. Perianth 
petaloid, persistent ; segments 6, subequal, spreading or reflexed, 
margins undulate or crisped. Stamens 6, hypogynous ; filaments 
filiform ; anthers linear, dorsifixed, versatile, extrorse. Ovary 
3-celled ; style filiform, deflexed, with 3 subulate arms. Fruit a 
large coriaceous septicidal capsule. Seeds few, subglobose ; testa 
spongy, wing-like, embryo cylindric.—Species 3 or 4, in Trop. 
Asia and Africa. 
G. superba, Linn. Sp. Pl. 305 ; Roxb. Fl. Ind. ii, 143 ; F. B. I. 
vi, 358; Watt E. D.; Prain Beng. Pl. 1073 ; Collett Fl. Siml. 
530 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb. vi, 766.—Vern. Kulhari, languli, rajah-rar 
( Ajmir). 
A tall branching glabrous herbaceous climber. Rootstock a chain of 
archedffleshy cylindric tubers, 6-12 in. long, budding from the convex 
upper side ; roots fibrous. Stem annual, leafy, 10-20ft. long. Leaves 
sessilefor nearly so, scattered or opposite, or sometimes ternately 
whorled, 3-8 in. long, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, tip spirally 
twisted to form a tendril, base cordate. Flowers solitary or sub- 
corymbose towards the ends of the branches, 3-4 in. across, persist- 
ent ; pedicels 3-6 in. long, deflexed from the tip; perianth segments 
up to 2} in. long, linear-lanceolate with crisply undulate margins, 
at first erect and greenish, afterwards becoming reflexed and turning 
to yellow or orange and finally scarlet. Filaments golden-yellow, 
13-12 in., spreading ; anthers nearly 4 in. long. Style up to 2 in. 
long, the arms } in. Capsule linear-oblong, about 13 in. long. 
-Common in Dehra Dun among bushes and eastwards along the Sub- 
Himalayan tracts of Rohilkhand and N. Oudh, usually in the out- 
skirts of forests, also in Bundelkhand and Merwara. Flowers June 
to October. Dristrr.: Throughout Trop. India and in Ceylon, 
ascending to 5,000 ft. on the W. Himalaya, and extending to Malaya, 
Cochin China and Trop. Africa. 
