1 82 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



Beaumontia was in full bloom, ascending the loftiest trees, and 

 clothing their trunks with its splendid foliage, and festoons of 

 enormous funnel-shaped white flowers." Hooker. 



Chonemorpha, flowers large, filaments broad, short and hairy, disk 

 thick, follicles 3-sided. * 0. macrophylla, a large climber, leaves 

 broad, oval, or roundish, very large, flowers white and fragrant in 

 erect cymes, follicles a foot long. Wari country (D.). 



Aganosma, disk 5-lobed, stigma columnar. * A. cymosa (A. Doniana, 

 D.). A rambling creeper, leaves oblong, flowers small in crowded 

 cymes. Fonda Ghaut (D.}. * A. caryophyllata, nerves of the leaves 

 red, flowers white in terminal panicles : a very ornamental garden 

 shrub (Z>.). Deccan (#.). 



Ichnocarpus, disk 5-lobed, stigma columnar. * I. frutescens, a large 

 climber with small elliptic leaves, and cymes of small white or 

 purplish flowers covered with red hairs, follicles very slender 

 curved. Wari and S.M. country (D.). 



ORDER 76. ASCLEPIADEJE. 



Shrubs, sometimes herbs, generally twining and abounding 

 in acrid milky juice, leaves opposite, entire, flowers regular 

 (except Ceropegia) more or less umbelled, calyx inferior, 5-lobed, 

 persistent, corolla tubular 5-lobed, the throat often fringed, 

 stamens 5, cohering round the pistil in a solid mass, and with 

 the appendages forming a 5-lobed crown (corona), pollen in 

 masses within, fruit of 2 follicles, seeds with a brush of hairs 

 at the hilum. 



A very large and distinct tropical order, often with handsome 

 flowers. It comes near to the last, but the staminal crown, which 

 outwardly is not the least like the stamens and pistil in any other 

 plants, is quite peculiar to this order. The first three genera here 

 given, however, are without this distinguishing mark. 



Note. When not otherwise stated, the species here described are 

 twining shrubs, smooth or nearly so. 



(a) Staminal crown none, or very small. 



1. HEMIDESMUS. Filaments distinct, anthers united at the 

 tip, stigma 5-angled. 



2. CRYPTOLEPIS. Filaments united at the base, anthers 

 united at the tip, and adhering by the base to the stigma. 



3. GYMNEMA. Filaments columnar, 5 fleshy processes some- 

 times found on the corolla in place of a corona, stigma large, 

 exserted. 



(b) Corona conspicuous. 



4. OXYSTELMA. Calyx small, an annular corona at the baso 

 of the corolla in addition to the staminal one. 



