104. ACANTHACE^. [30. Dicliptera. 



30. DICLIPTERA, Juss. 



' Erect or diffuse herbs with entire or undulate leaves and small or 

 m.s. sessile or subsessile flowers collected, often together with imper- 

 fect flowers or their bracts, into fascicled capitate cymes in the axils 

 of the leaves ; fascicles also sometimes on short axillary branches. 

 Ultimate cymes (cymules) enclosed between a pair of usually unequal 

 dorsi-ventral bracts (cymule bracts)* and consisting of 1-2, rarely 

 more, perfect flowers together with 2 or more imperfect flowers. 

 Perfect flowers with narrow or setaceous proper bracts and bracteoles 

 or these absent, imperfect flowers consisting of an empty calyx or 

 reduced to bx'acteoles. Calyx .5-partite, segments sub-equal narrow, 

 more or less pubescent. Corolla white, pink or red, purple-spotted ; 

 tvibe slender, upper lip narrow entire or emarginate, lower 3-lobed 

 recurved. Stamens 2, anther cells 2 ovoid, superposed, muticous. 

 Stigma shortly 2 -fid. Ovules 2 in each cell. Capsule clavate with 

 solid base, placentse rising elastically from their base. Seeds ovoid 

 compressed, verrucose or glandular-papillose, not hairy. 



A. Flowers "o-'G" Ions'. Proper bracts and bracteoles present : — 

 L. lanceolate 1-3", glabrous beneath. Cymule bracts mostly 



obovate, glandulai'-pubescent. Calyx -2 -'3", glandular *. I. Boxhnrghiana. 

 L. ovate, attaining 3'5", hairy beneath. Cymule bracts 

 nearly parallel-sided, shortly aristate, hairy. Calyx 

 •15-' 18", shortly hairy, not glandular 2. huiAeuroides. 



B. Flowers "25" long. Proper bracts absent : — 



Cymule bracts olilanceolate, densely white-ciliate , . . 3. micranfhes. 



1. D. Roxburghiana, Nees. 



A tufted herb from a stout woody rootstock (in old plants), Avith 

 erect puberulous or strigillose stems 6-18" high, rhomboid-lanceolate 

 or narrowly- to broadly-lanceolate, acuminate leaves 1-5-3", nearly 

 glabrous beneath, thinly hairy or puberulous above. Flowers 

 numerous rose-purple 'S-'G" long in axillary peduncled bracteate 

 capitate cymes. Cyme internodes above the first pair of bracts usually 

 nearly obsolete. Bracts, bracteoles and calyx all glandular-pubescent 

 not hairy. Cymule-bracts variable, from obovate to oblanceolate and 

 linear, -'d-'b", those in each pair uneqrml, acute or obtuse but not 

 aristulate nor cuspidate. Calyx •25--3" Avith filiform sepals in the 

 perfect flowers. Capsule •2--25", pubescent, not hairy. 



Hills of Chota Nagpur. Ranchi ! Palamau! FL, Fr. March-June. Forest and 

 waste-ground, coming up abundantly from the woody stocks after jungle fires and 

 soon flowering. 



Leaves cuneate at base, margins pubescent, sec. n. about 6. fine raised above. 

 Petiole ■2--i"- Axillary peduncles 1-3, •2--5" long, bearing about 2 decussate pairs 

 of foliaceous bracts or again ternate above the first pair, from linear to obovate on 

 the same inflorescence. Cymule bracts l-fld, or central pair 1-3-fid, Bracteoles 



* Note.— In the axil of the main bract or floral-leaf there are one to several pairs 

 of laterally placed bracts; these pairs each enclose a series of pairs of bracts 

 (cymule bracts) placed posteriorly and anteriorly (or dorsally and ventrally in 

 respect of main axis) ; these bracts which immediately subtend the cymule Clarke 

 calls '• proper bracts," but the bracts proper to each flower appear to me to be the 

 narrow ones within the cymule itself or they may be altogether absent. The 

 cymule perhaps normally consists of decussate pairs of flowers. 



697 



