98 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



7. C. pumila. A low or procumbent plant, leaflets 10 to 30 

 pair, very small, unequal-sided, with a smooth gland between 

 the lowest pair, flowers one to three together above the axils, 

 pod flat linear. Sarmal. 



Common generally. 



C. Kleinii, like the last, bub more robust, downy or hairy, leaflets 

 four pairs or morf, pod linear, broader at the top. Bandora. Not in 

 D. * C. obovata (C. senna, D.). Tall, nearly smooth plant, leaflets 4 

 to 6 pair, without glands, very glaucous, flowers pale yellow in erect 

 racemes, pod much curved. Mendi dl. Gazerat, E. Deccan and Sind 

 (D.). * C. Montana. Shrub or small tree, leaflets 10 to 15 pair, bristle- 

 pointed, without glands, flowers in long panicles, pod linear straight. 

 Ghauts (D.). 



The following are cultivated : 0. glauca, a tree with a heavy 

 smell, Kdrud : wild all over India (D.). C. augustifolia, a shrub, pro- 

 duces the drug senna, sona mukhi ; nowhere wild in India (H.). C. 

 sumatrana, a handsome tree, Kasod, Siras. 



Note. For the bark Cassia see under Cinnamonum. Cynometra, 

 flowers minute, pod turgid, oblique. * C. ramiftora, shrub or tree, 

 leaflets 1 to 3 pair, oblong, oblique, racemes few flowered, sessile on the 

 branches, pod fleshy, nearly semicircular, warty. Konkan, very rare 

 (Z>.). Gardens, Bombay (.). 



Hardwickia, flowers minute, calyx with scarcely any tube, corolla 

 none. * H. binata, a tree, leaflets oblique, two, flowers greenish- 

 yellow in racemes, pod strap-shaped with one seed at the top. 

 Anjan. Khandesh, Nimar and Central India. 



(c) AMHERSTIE^E. 



50. SAEACA. 



S. Indica (Jonesia Asoka, D.) A small tree, leaflets 3 to 6 

 pair, flowers orange-coloured changing to red, in large round 

 heads, calyx tube long, stamens long, rising from the edge of 

 the calyx tube, braots peduncles and pedicels coloured, pod 

 broad, flat, straight or scimitar shaped, 8 to 10-seeded. Asholca, 

 jdsondi, asupdld. 



Konkan and Ghauts : not very common. 



No one looking at the flowers would suspect that this was a le- 

 guminous tree. Sir W. Jones found the stamens to vary from 6 to 

 9, even in flowers from the same tree, and thought that no part of 

 the plant is constant. He says, " The vegetable world scarce exhibits 

 a richer sight than the Ashoka tree in full bloom," which is rather 

 higher praise than any specimen I have seen deserves. He hoped 

 .that botanists would retain the Sanscrit name Ashoka, "as it per- 

 petually occurs in the old Indian poems and Ireatises on religious 

 rites ; " and the Indian botanists of the last century improved on this 

 suggestion by naming the genus after " the most enlightened of the 

 sons of men " himself; l thus making the tree Jonesia Asoka. But 



1 Sir W. Jones was so called by Dr. Johnson. 



