Basella.~\ cxvu. CHENOPODIACE.E. (J. B. Hooker.) 21 



t. 215, f. 1 ; Gcertn. Carp. t. 126. B. alba, Linn. ; Roxb. FT. Ind. ii. 104 ; 

 Wall. Cat. 6960; Wight Ic. t. 896; Grah. Cat. Bomb. PI. 170; Dalz. & 

 Gibs. Bomb. Fl. Suppl. 73. B. canalifolia, Ham. ; Wall. Cat. 69ft. B. 

 alba,.L., nigra, Lour., cordifolia, Lamk., ramosa, Jacq., japonica, Burm., and 

 lucida, L., Moq. 1. c. 223, 224. B. ramosa, Jacq. f. Eclog. ii. 10, t. 1 61 ; 

 ReicJib. Hort. t. 61. B. crassifolia, Wight mss. Rheede Hort. Mai. vii. 

 t. 24. 



Throughout INDIA, wild or cultivated, and in CEYLON. DISTEIB. Trop. Asia and 

 Africa. 



Glabrous. Leaves petioled, broadly ovate or cordate or orbicular, 2-7 in. 

 diam., narrowed into the petioles. Spikes 1-6 in., axillary, peduncled, simple or 

 branched, flowers white or red. Fruit size of a pea, red white or black. Kox- 

 burgh regards two varieties of this, a red- and a green-stemmed one, as wild in India, 

 and adds three cultivated sorts, a red- an,d a white-stemmed that are raised from 

 seed, and differ only in luxuriance from the corresponding wild forms ; and lastly a 

 large sort (B. lucida, L., and cordifolia, Lamk.), which is the most cultivated, and 

 is always increased by slips ; it is the largest form, covering trellises and native houses, 

 and is the most succulent, and more used as a pot-herb than the others. 



ORDER CXVIII. PHVTOLACCACEJE. 



Griabrous trees shrubs or herbs. Leaves alternate, quite entire ; stipules 

 small or 0. Flowers racemed, bracteate and 2-bracteolate. Sepals 4-5, 

 imbricate in bud. Petals 0. Stamens 4, alternate with the petals, or more 

 and irregularly inserted; filaments usually persistent and anthers de- 

 ciduous. Carpels 1 or more, superior, free or connate, 1-ovuled ; stigmas 

 usually sessile and recurved ; ovules amphitropous or carnpylotropous. Ripe 

 carpels dry or fleshy. Seeds erect, often arillate; albumen fleshy or 

 floury ; embryo peripheric. Genera 20, species about 60, tropical and 

 temperate. 



llivina Latbenia, Ham. in Wall. Cat. 6952, from Patua, erroneously cited by 

 Moquin under his Pircunia Latbenia, is the common South American Bivina Icevis, L. 

 (R. orientalis, Moq.), or an allied plant, no doubt cultivated at Patna. Mohlana 

 nemoralis, Mart., a Brazilian and African undershrub with reticulate fruit, is naturalized 

 in several parts of Ceylon (Trimen in Lond. Journ. Bot. xxiii. (1885) 173. 



FKVTOXiACCA, Linn. 



Shrubs or herbs, rarely trees. Leaves exstipulate. Flowers 1-2-sexual. 

 Sepals 4, oblong, obtuse. Stamens 5-25. Carpels 5-10, free or connate, 

 fleshy in fruit. Seeds reniform, compressed, exarillate, albumen floury; 

 embryo annular, cotyledons slender, radicle ascending. Species 10, tropical 

 and subtropical. 



P. acinosa, Roxb. Fl. Ind. ii. 458 ; quite glabrous or puberulous, 

 leaves elliptic- ovate or lanceolate acuminate narrowed into the stout petiole, 

 racemes shortly peduncled. Wall. Cat. 1598. P. decandra, var. /3. acinosa, 

 Moq. in DC. Prodr. xiii. 2. 33. P. Kaempferi, A. Gr.ay in Mem. Amer. 

 Acad. N. S. vi. 404. Pircunia Latbenia, Moq. I. c. 29, excl. syn. Wall. Cat. 



TEMPEEATE HIMALAYA, wild or cultivated, from Hazara and Kashmir to 

 Bhotan, alt. 5-9000 ft. DISTEIB. China, Japan. 



Stems 3-5 ft., stout, herbaceous, succulent. Leaves 6-10 by 2J-4 in., green, 

 thinly succulent. Racemes 2-6 in., erect, many-fld., rachis stout ; bracts linear- 

 lanceolate, membranous ; pedicels in. Floivers ^ in. diam. Sepals broadly oblong, 



