BLYXA.] HYDROCHARITACEM. 175 



dragging the young fertilized female flower to within a small distance 

 of the muddy bottom of the water to ripen. 



Abundant within the area. DISTRIB. : More or less throughout India 

 and in Ceylon, extending westwards to Spain, and in most warm 

 regions of the World. 



4. BLYXA, Thouars ; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 660. 



Annual, submerged, tufted, scapigerous herbs. Leaves linear, 

 acute, entire or minutely serrulate. Flowers 2-sexual or dioecious ; 

 scapes long or short ; males pedicelled, several in a tubular 2-toothed 

 spathe, long-peduncled ; 2-sexual or fern, flowers solitary, sessile 

 within a tubular 2-toothed spathe. Sepals 3, linear. Petals 3, 

 linear, longer than the sepals. MALE flowers : Stamens normally 

 3-seriate, 1 or more often reduced to staminodes ; anthers narrow, 

 erect. Pistillodes 3, slender. FEM. flowers solitary. Staminodes 

 none or minute. Ovary linear, 1 -celled, beaked ; style very short ; 

 stigmas 3, filiform, ovules many. Fruit linear, included in the ribbed 

 narrow ventricose spathe ; pericarp membranous. Seeds many, 

 oblong, smooth or tubercled, often tailed. Species 7 or 8, in Tropt, 

 Asia, Madagascar, Australia and in Sumatra. 



Leaves not serrulate ; flowers dio3cious ; 



stamens 8 . . . . 1. B. Roxburghii. 



Leaves serrulate ; flowers 2-sexual ; stamens 3 2. B. oryzeiorum. 



1 B. Roxbnrgbii, Rich, in Mem. Inst. Fr. (1881) 77, t. 5 ; F. 

 B. I. F., 660 ; Prain Beng. PL 996 ; CooJce FL Bomb, ii, 670. Vailis- 

 neria octandra, Roxb. ; FL Ind. Hi, 572. Vern. Syala (Beng.). 



A submerged tufted annual. ' Leaves radical, 8-24 in. long, linear, entire, 

 broad at the base, finely acuminate at the apex. Flowers dioecious, 

 white. MALE flowers : Scape straight, as long as or longer than the 

 leaves. Stamens 8 ; filaments unequal, shorter than the petals. 

 FEM. flowers : Scape shorter and thicker than in the males. Fruit 

 2-4 in. long. Seeds ^V in. long, distinctly tuberculate, shortly tailed. 



I have seen no specimens from the Upper Gangetic Plains, but being 

 widely distributed in Bengal in still water it has in all probability been 

 overlooked. It is said to be plentiful throughout the Bombay Pre- 

 sidency, and is found also in Malay Peninsula and in Australia. 



