272 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



of the species are tinged with red. The flowers of some species are 

 handsome, but most would ordinarily be called weeds. But then 

 comes the question, 



" Of all that deck the lanes, the fields, the bowers, 

 What parts the kindred tribes of weeds and flowers?" Cowper. 



POLTGONUM. Flowers clustered or spiked with bracts, steins 

 thickened at the nodes, and appearing to be jointed, stamens 

 any number up to 8, styles 2 or 3. 



H. calls this a very troublesome genus, and has 70 species, many 

 of them with several varieties. 



1. P. pleleium (P. elegans, D.). A small, prostrate plant, 

 with numerous stems, leaves lanceolate, smooth, stipules large, 

 white, ragged and hairy, flowers few in the axils, deep rose- 

 colonred, stamens 3 to 8, very short. 



In good specimens this is a very pretty heath-like little plant, 

 sometimes red all over. I have had it at Mahableshwar, in Salsette, 

 and the Panch Mahals ; but it is not plain whether D. thought it 

 common or not. H. has 10 varieties, one or more found all over 

 India. 



2. P. glabrum. A tall, smooth, reddish plant, leaves long, 

 lanceolate, oleander-like, flowers pink, in long-stalked spikes 

 or racemes, stamens about 7, seeds ovate, compressed. Rakt- 



jrura^ sheral. 



In river beds, in the Deccan, Konkan and Ghauts ; and common in 

 most parts of India (ff.). He says it is difficult to separate this from 

 smooth forms of P. persicana, which is so common in moist places 

 in England ; but this is much larger, and less branched. The English 

 plant has generally a dark mark in the middle of the leaf, which, I 

 believe, does not occur in Indian specimens. 



3. P. larlatum (P. rivulare, D.). Smaller than the last, 

 leaves slightly hairy, stems, stipules and bracts very much so, 

 flowers pinkish, in long spikes, seeds triangular, stamens 5 to 

 8. Dliaktd sheral 



In the same situations as the last. Throughout the hotter parts of 

 India (fl.). 



4. P. Chinense. A climber, half shrubby, stems red, leaves 

 oblong, subcordate, hairy, stipules long, lanceolate, entire, 

 flowers in small, nearly round heads, white, with violet anthers, 

 bracts auricled, stamens 8. Paral, narali. 



Mahableshwar, very common : confined to the Ghauts (#.) It 

 seems from H. to be found everywhere in the hills in India. He 

 calls it " a rambling, or erect shrub; a polymorphous plant." 



