1. Smilax.] 145. LILIACEM. 



narrow-oblong. Berry ovoid, red to black, -3- -4" long, or subglobose. Seed 

 usually 1, rarely 3, pale yellow, shining, rounded with a dark basal umbo. 

 (One specimen had sepals and petals nearly as large as in mncrophylla). 



2. ASPARAGUS, L. 



Shrubs or undershrubs, erect or often scandent, rarely herbaceous, 

 with stout creeping rootstock. Leaves reduced to minute scales, 

 often spinescent, bearing in their axils tufts of more or less leaf -like 

 acicular, flattened or 3-quetrous barren branchlets (cladodes). Flowers 

 small or minute, axillary, rarely 1 -sexual, solitary fasicled or racemed, 

 on jointed pedicels. Perianth 6-partite white or greenish. Stamens 

 on the bases of the segments. Anthers oblong. Ovary 3-gonous 

 with style and 3 stigmas, cells 2-more-ovuled. Berrj^ globose. Seeds 

 2-6 with black brittle testa ; embryo dorsal. 



A. Leaves becoming spines below. Fls. distinctly racemed : — 

 Cladodes slender -5-1", often falcate, shorter than the 



racemes ......... 1. racemosus. 



Cladodes stout 1-2 ■ 5", striaght, exceeding the racemes . . 2. acerosus. 



B. Leaves spurred but not spinescent. Cladodes -25- -4" long. 



Fls. solitary, 2-3-nate or laxly racemed. Erect . . .3. gracilis. 



1. A. racemosus, Willd. Huring Atkir, K. ; Kedar nari, S. ; Sata- 

 war (the roots), Th. ; Gaichera, Or. ; Isparjar (Sambalpur). 



A slender scrambling or scandent suffruticose perennial Avith woody 

 prickly shoots Avitli reflexed spines. Cladodes more or less acicular 

 and 3-quetrous, falcate, -5-1" long, divaricate, finely acuminate. 

 Flowers white, sweet-scented, • 12" diam. on filiform articulate pedicels 

 • 12-' 17" long in very short racemes, or some racemes compound and 

 up to 3-5" long. Berries •1--25" diam., scarlet. 



Common in the forests and scrub jungles. Champaran 1 Santal Parg. ! Chota 

 Kagpur, all districts ! Puri ! Maymbhanj ! Sambalpur ! i. e. throughout the 

 whole province. Fl. Sept.-Dec. iJeciduous, or dying back to the root in the h.s. 



The plant is rather variable. The following forms occur in our 

 area : — 



Var. a. Prainii. 



This is a very distinct plant from the ordinary racemosus in its very short cladodes. 

 Stems with strong straight reflexed thorns -3" long below. Branches spreading 

 striate, 3-quetrous or not. Cladodes only -3- -4" rarely -5", and only 2-3-nate, 

 rarely 2- or 4-nate divaricate, 3-grooved or imequally 3-quetrous, tip with a 

 minute white .spinulose point, and angles minutely scabrid. Racemes usually 

 very short, often with rhachis under -2" and few fld., but sometimes they are 

 1-1-5", which connects the variety with the ordinary form, bracts about half as 

 long as the pedicels. Berries -17- -25" diam. Seed usually only 1, black, some- 

 what ellipsoid-globose. 



The connnon form in Singbhum forests. Prain (to whom it was sent in 1902) 

 remarked that it was a very puzzling form. 



Roxburgh draws a distinction in the position of the embryo in racemosus and 

 acerosus. As far as I follow him the embryo of var. Prainii is that of his acerosus ; 

 the radicle starts in the umbilical hemisphere low down, and the fiUform embryo 

 ascends in a large semicircle remote from the umbilicus and down again to the 

 equator the other side. The arch, however, is not in one plane but wavy. 



Var. /3. (near racemosus proper). 



Branches sharply angled. Cladodes 1", 4-8-nate, very falcate. Racemes long 

 and branched often 2''-3-5'' and sometimes bearing spines and flowering when 



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