180 ACANTHACE^. [ NELBOIUA" 



ovate or sometimes angular leaves and blue flowers. Often cultivated 

 in gardens, and sometimes nut with in a semi-wild state within the* 

 area. It is a native of E. Bengal whence it extends to S. China. 



2. TUBIFLOBA, J. F. Gmel. 

 UNDER ELYTRARIA IN FL. BRIT. TND. iv, 394, 



Herbs, stemless or nearly so. Leaves alternate, crowded, sub- 

 radical. Flowers in close rigid simple or divided spikes. Scapes 

 covered by spirally imbricate bracts ; bracteoles smaller than the 

 bracts. Calyx 4-partite ; segments unequal, the largest sometimes 

 2-fid. Corolla white or bluish, 2-lipped, tube linear ; lobes 5, 

 oblong, imbricate in bud. Stamens 2, perfect, attached to the 

 throat of the corolla ; anthers elliptic, acnte ; cells parallel, with or 

 without a minute spur at the base. Disk femall. Style short, 

 stigma shortly 2-lobed; ovules 6-10 in each cell, superposed. Fruit 

 an ellipsoid acute capsule. Seeds minute, ovoid, reticulated, 

 minutely papillose, attached by a small hilum, without a retina- 

 culum. Species 3 or 4, American, one of which is widely spread in 

 Trop. Africa and Asia. 



T. acaulis, 0. Kuntze Eevis. Gen. i, 500 ; Qooke FL Bomb, ii, 345. 

 Elytraria cre na ta, VaU ; Royle 111.298; F. B. I.iv,894. Justicia, 

 acaulis, Linn. /.; Roxb.; Fl. Ind. i, 119. 



Stem none or up to 2 in. long, woolly. Leaves 3-8 in. long, obovate 

 or oblanceolate, obtuse or apiculate, tapering into a hairy petiole, more 

 or less crenate, nerves beneath pubescent. Scapes several, usually 

 longer than the leaves, clothed with small rigid elliptic acuminate bract- 

 like scales. Spikes hard, i-4 in. long, simple or branched ; bracts 5 in. 

 long, ovate, acuminate or spine tipped, hairy outside and with ciliate 

 margins. Calyx in. long ; segments pennicillate at the apex and 

 with scarious ciliate margins, three of them narrowly lanceolate, the 

 4th broader and sometimes 2-fid. Corolla - * n ' iong, pale-blue or 

 white. Anthers without a basal spur. Capsule |-- in. long. 



Moradabad (T. Thomson), ravine-tracts in the vicinity of Delhi and 

 Agra (Royle, Munro), Bundelkhand (Edgeworth, Duthie), Merwara 

 (Duthie). Flowers after the rainy season. DISTRIB. Southwards 

 through the drier parts of Peninsular India and in Ceylon, extending 

 to Trop. and S. Africa and to Trop. and N. America. 



3. NELSONIA, K. Br. ; FL Brit. Ind. iv, 394. 

 A diffuse softly villous herb. Leaves opposite, subequal. Flowers 

 in ovate or cylindric spikes; bracts herbaceous, ovate, glandular- 

 villous, closely imbricate, alternate or spirally scattered, bracteoles- 



