Calotropis. — Asclepias. 751 
no. 681. — Bot. Reg., tab. 1792. — Calotropis heterophylla Decsne. 
in Ann. Science. Natur., ser.2 vol. IX p.329 not of Wallich. — As- 
clepias procera Willd. Spec. Plant. I, p. 1263. — Asclepias gigantea 
Jacq. observ. Bot. IU, p.17 tab.69. — A stout shrub, 3—10 m 
high, all the youngest parts clothed with a white tomentum, be- 
coming glabrous. Leaves on very short petioles or subsessile, 57/, to 
22 cm long, 21/,—14 em broad, ovate, oblong-ovate, elliptic, or 
obovate, obtuse with a short abrupt point, base cordate, glabrous. 
Peduncles lateral and terminal, 1—6 cm long, stout, branched or 
somewhat elongating and producing successive subumbellate clusters 
of 5—10 flowers, the young parts white-tomentose, becoming more 
or less glabrous; bracts 1—1,5 cm long, lanceolate or ovate-lanceo- 
late, acute, deciduous; pedicels 1—2,5 em long. Sepals 5—5*/, mm 
long, 2"/,—5+/, mm broad. Corolla campanulate, 1—2 mm in diam., 
5-lobed to */, the way down; lobes 81/,—10 mm long, 61/,—8"/, mm 
broad, ovate, acute, quite glabrous, white, with dark purple-brown 
tips. Coronal-lobes 5*/,—6 mm long, 5—5?/, mm broad at the 
base, compressed, oblong, obliquely truncate or rounded and cleft 
into two short lobes at the top, minutely scabrous or pubescent 
down the back, which has an upcurved and inrolled spur at the 
base. Follicles 6—9 cm long, 5'/,—6 em thick, subglobose, obliquely 
ellipsoid or ovoid, obtuse or depressed at the apex, with a thick 
spongy or somewhat inflated pericarp. Seeds 6—6'/, mm long, 
5 mm broad, plano-convex, narrowly margined, minutely tomentose. 
— Flow. December to April. 
N. d. Cairo: Matariya; Birket-el-Hage. — N. f. Medinet-el- 
Fayim; Kém-Faris; Begig; Sentris; Tamia; El-Wady; Kl-Hammam; 
Kafr-Mukfit. — N. v. Island of Roda; Helwan; Kafr-el-Ayyat; 
Beni-Suéf; Feshn; Roda; Siut; Ekhmim; Farshfit; Karnak; Luksor; 
Aswan. — O. Siwa; Little Oasis; Farafra; Dakhel; Great-Oasis. — 
D. 1. D. a. sept. D. a. mer. Often on the borders of the desert and 
in the Wadies. 
Local name: oshar; oshar; the fruit: beyd-el-’oshar. 
Also extends through Palestine, Tropical Africa and Arabia into India. 
430. (8.) Aselepias Linn. 
Calyx 5-partite. Corolla 5-lobed to below the middle or nearly 
to the base, campanulate, subrotate, or reflexed; lobes overlapping 
to the left in bud. Corona of 5 lobes arising from the staminal- 
column, opposite the anthers, variable in form, usually free to the 
hase, but sometimes with the inflexed sides shortly adnate to the 
staminal-column, complicate-cucullate or channelled down the face, 
or at least with the margins at the apex middle or base of the 
