PUPALIA.] AMARANTACEJE. 19 



Stamens 5 ; staminodcs truncate, fimbriate. Utricle oblong, enclosed 

 in the hardened perianth. Seed subcylindrical, with a truncate apex, 

 brown. 



A vory common weed of way-sides and waste places all over the area. 

 DISTRIB. : Throughout India and in Ceylon, extending to Trop. Asia, 

 Africa, Australia and America. The plant is used medicinally for 

 various purposes. There appears to be amongst many of the peasant 

 people of N. India a general belief in its efficacy as an antidote for 

 the poison of snakes and scorpions. Colonel Madden mentions that 

 in Oudh the plant is considered to have a paralizing effect on scor- 

 pions. The fruit, when ripe, becomes easily detached from the rhachis, 

 carrying with it the hardened persistent perianth to which are 

 attached the spine-like bracteoles. 



3. PUP ALIA, Juss. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. iv, 723. 



Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite, petioled. Flowers 

 fascicled in simple or panicled spikes ; fascicles containing one 

 perfect flower, and several imperfect ones, the perianth-segments of 

 which are reduced to stellately spreading hooked bristles ; bracts and 

 bracteoles scarious ; perianth -segments of perfect flowers 5, slightly 

 connate below, herbaceous, rarely equal, lanceolate, acuminate, 

 3-5-nerved. Stamens 5, filaments slightly connate below, anthers 

 2-celled, staminodes none. Ovary ovoid, style slender, stigma 

 capitellate ; ovule solitary, pendulous from a long basal funicle. 

 Fruit an ovoid membranous utricle, enclosed in the perianth, its 

 apex areolate. Seed inverse, lenticular, rostellate, testa thinly 

 coriaceous, embryo annular; cotyledons linear, flat, radicle ascending. 

 Species 5, in Asia and Africa. 



P. lappacea, Juss. in. Ann. Mus. Par ii, 132 ; F. B. I. iv, 724 ; 

 Prain Beng. PL 872 ; Cooke Fl. Botnb. ii, 497. 



A large straggling undershrub ; branches terete, tomentose. Leaves 

 petioled, membranous, 1 J-4 in. long, ovate or elliptic, acute or acumi- 

 nate, tomentose on both surfaces, ciliate ; base rounded or shortly 

 cuneate ; main nerves many, prominent beneath. Flowers in approxi- 

 mate or distant clusters arranged in terminal spikes 4-10 in. long ; 

 rhachis slender, tcmentose ; bracts J-J in. long, ovate, acuminate, 

 pungent, villous ; bracteoles 4- in. long, ovate-oblong, apiculate, con- 

 . <cave. Perianth i in. long. Sepals lanceolate, aristate, 3-nerved, 

 densely white-woolly. Sterile flowers reduced to a number of un- 



