266 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



8. ALTERN ANTHER A. Usually prostrate, flowers small, white 

 in heads, sepals 5 unequal, stamens 2 to 5, united into a short 

 cup with or without staminodes, anthers one-celled. 



1. CELOSIA. 



C. argentea. Smooth, branched, leaves linear lanceolate, 

 flowers silvery tinged with pink, in long-stalked spikes, sepals 

 larger than the bracts, fruit ovate or pear-shaped, seeds black 

 and shining. Limri, Kudhu, Kunjir. 



This is the silver-spiked cockscomb, called in Mr. Birdwood's list, 

 Quailgrass. Very common in cultivated fields. Throughout India 

 and Ceylon (ff.). In Borneo and the Malay archipelago "it forms 

 compact little bushes 2 feet high, every branchlet terminated by a 

 rose-tipped spike of silvery bracts/' Burbidge. 



(7. cristata, the garden cockscomb, Idl murglia, rdjagiri, H. looks on 

 as a form of this, and doubts it being anywhere wild in India. It 

 assumes many forms under cultivation, from which many spurious 

 species have resulted (H.). 



2. DlGERA. 



D. arvensis. A pretty, rather procumbent plant, leaves 

 ovate tinged with red, petioles long and hairy, flowers red, in 

 erect spikes several inches long. Getand. 



Leaves very variable, flowers greenish (H.). 



Poona, Bandora, Surat. I had what I believed to be this, growing 

 on the sea-shore in S. Konkan, very large with fleshy leaves, and the 

 long spikes drooping. 



3. AMARANTHS. Amaranth. 



It seems quite unsuitable that so uninteresting a set of plants as 

 those which come under this genus should bear the name of that 

 " Immortal amaranth . . . which once 

 In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, 

 ~ Began to bloom, but soon for man's offence 

 To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, 

 And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life." Milton. 



"The only amaranthine flower on earth 

 Is virtue." Cowper. 



1. A. spinosus. Smooth, dark-coloured, thorny, leaves 

 oblong obtuse petioled, variegated behind, flowers in dense 

 axillary clusters and terminal spikes, green, sepals and stamens 

 5, utricles as long as the calyx. Kanteblidji, Kdntemdth. 



A common weed. Throughout India and Ceylon in waste places ; 

 the plant varies in colour from green and red to purple (H.). 



2. A. Uitum (Euxolus oleraceiis, D.). Tall, smooth, stem 

 succulent reddish, leaves ovate, very obtuse or retuse, spike 



