RHABDIA,] BORAGINACEJB. $& 



entire, rounded at the apex and sometimes apiculate, glabrous or more 

 of less hispid. Flowers shortly stalked ; bracts lanceolate, acute. 

 Calyx in.^long, fleshy, sparsely hairy ; lobes unequal, ciliate. Corolla 

 less that in. long ; lobes twice as lon^ as the tube, spreading. Stamens 

 exserted. Fruit subglobose, in. in diam., nearly dry and red or orange- 

 coloured when ripe. 



Edges of sandy and rocky beds of streams in Bundelkhand, often com- 

 pletely submerged during the rainy season. Flowers in October and 

 November. DISTBIB. Beds of streams in Kumaon ascending to 

 2,500 ft. ; also in Assam and in 0., W. and S. India to Ceylon, common 

 in Tenasserim and extending to Trop. Africa and Brazil. Edgeworth's 

 R. sericea, distinguished by its very silky pubescence, is abundant on 

 the banks of the Sarju river in Kumaon. His R. fluviatilis is wholly 

 glabrous, and grows on granite rocks in the bed of the Ken river in 

 Bundelkhand, where, after remaining submerged for several weeks, 

 its long branches hang down into the water when the rocks are left 

 exposed. 



5, HELIOTROP IUM, Lin- ; Fl. Brit. Ind. iv, 148. 



Annual or perennial herbs, rarely shrubby, usually villous or 

 scabrous. Leaves alternate, rarely subopposite. Flowers usually 

 smal), white or pale pnrple, usually in terminal dichotomous cymes, 

 with often long and scorpioid branches; bracts small or none, or 

 sometimes leaf j. Calyx 5-lobed ; lobes lanceolate or linear, rarely 

 short. Corolla-tule cylindrical, throat usually naked ; lobes 5, 

 imbricate or induplicate, usually spreading in flower. Stamens 

 5, on the corolla-tube, included, filaments very short. Ovary more 

 or less perfectly 4-oelled, ovules 1 in each cell ; style terminal, short 

 or long, with a depressed stigmatic ring below the ap -x ; stigma 

 above the disk none or short or elongate, rarely with 2 linear branches. 

 Fruit dry or somewhat fleshy, 2- or 4-sulcate or- lobe<i, at length 

 splitting into 4 distinct or germinately cohering nutlets, 1 or 2 of 

 which are often suppressed. 6'eeds straight or curved, albumen 

 usually scanty.-^ Species about 220, in warm and temperate regions 

 of both hemispheres. 



Leaves up to 4 in. long, ovate, subserrate ; 

 fruit 4-beaked, separating into 2 nut-like 



2-seeded pyrenes 1. H. indicum. 



Leaves not exceeding 2 in. long; fruit not 

 beaked, separating into 2-4 nutlets. 



Calyx enveloping the fruit, lobes short, 

 flowers in short woolly spikes. A pros- 

 trate villous annual - . . . 2. H. supinum. 



