EUMEX.] POLYGONACEM. 41 



and with a conspicuous oblong dark-coloured tubercle on the back : 

 tips acute ; margins very narrow, entire or with one or two short 

 straight teeth or spines. Styles terminal. 



Edges of tanks near Banda in Bundelkhand (Mrs. Bell). DISTRIB. : 

 Bengal, Behar, Khasia Hills and in the Deccan Peninsula. This 

 species is very similar to the European E. conglomeratus, but the leaf 

 is panduriform, and the tips of the valves are acute. 



2. R. dentatus, Linn. Mant. ii, 226 ; JRoyle III. 313 ; F. B. 1. 

 v, 59 ; Watt E. D. ; Prain Beng. PL 889 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb, ii, 518. 



An erect annual, 1-2 ft. high. Stems grooved, glabrous, usually tinged 

 with red. Leaves 3-4 in. long, oblong, obtuse, glabrous, base rounded or 

 cordate, petioles of radical leaves up to 2J in. long. Flowers shortly 

 pedicelled, 2-sexual, arranged in distinct leafy or leafless whorls. 

 Perianth J-^ in. long ; inner segments broadly ovate, reticulate- 

 veined, much enlarged in fruit and with an ovoid- oblong smooth 

 tubercle on its back, margins irregularly toothed or pectinate ; the 

 teeth numerous, short, straight, not hooked. Nutlets T \j in. long, 

 acutely 3-gonous or almost winged. 



N. W. India (Boyle), Dehra Dun (King), Sub-Himalayan tracts of N. 

 Oudh and Gorakhpur (R. Thompson and Duthie), Moradabad (T. 

 Thomson), Bundelkhand (Mrs. Bell). DISTRIB. : From Bengal and 

 Assam to W. and S. India ; also on the Himalaya up to 1,000 ft. in 

 Kumaon and extending to China. Hooker alludes to a specimen 

 from Oudh in which the inner segments of the perianth are very 

 narrowly winged, thus showing a transition to R. nigricans. The 

 roots yield a dye which is said to be used in Sind. 



3. B. nepalensis, Spreng. Syst. ii, 159 ; F. B. I. v, 60 ; Collett Fl 

 Siml 428. 



Annual or occasionally perennial. Root sometimes with tuberous 

 fibres (Boiss.) Stems stout, erect, 2-4 ft. high, branched. Leaves at 

 the base of the stems up to 14 in. long, oblong or triangular-ovate, 

 acute or obtuse, base cordate, petioles very slender ; upper leaves 

 sessile or nearly so, narrowed to the base. Whorls distant, on elongate 

 nearly leafless racemes. Fruiting sepals orbicular- ovate, broadly 

 winged, one or more with an oblong tubercle on the back, wing 

 pectinately toothed and strongly reticulate, teeth usually with hooked 

 tips. 



Dehra Dun (King), and in the Sub-Himalayan tracts of N. Oudh and 

 Gorakhpur (Duthie). DISTRJB. : Temp. Himalaya from Bhutan to 



