262 LIL1ACEM. [ SHILAX. 



ripens from December to February. DISTRIB. : Outer ranges of 

 Himalaya in Kumaon ; also in Bengal, Behar, Central India, Ceylon 

 and Burma. The stems yield a strong fibre sometimes used for 

 making brushes, and the thinner stems as tooth-sticks. 



3. GLORIOSA, Linn. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 358. 



Climbing herbs with leafy stems springing from a naked tuberous 

 rootstock. Leaves alternate opposite or 3-nately whorled, lanceo- 

 late, strongly nerved and with a long spiral tendril-like apex. 

 Flowers large, showy, solitary, axillary, pedicels reflexed. Perianth 

 petaloid, persistent ; segments 6, subequal, spreading or reflexed, 

 margins undulate or crisped. Stamens 6, hypogynous ; filaments 

 filiform ; anthers linear, dorsifixed, versatile, extrorse. Ovary 

 3-celled ; style filiform, deflexed, with 3 subulate arms. Fruit a 

 large coriaceous septicidal capsule. Seeds few, subglobose ; testa 

 spongy, wing-like, embryo cylindric. Species 3 or 4, in Trop. 

 Asia and Africa. 



G. superba, Linn. Sp. PL 305 ; Roxb. FL Ind. ii, 143 ; F. B. I. 

 vi, 358 ; Watt E. D. ; Prain Beng. PL 1073 ; Collett FL Siml. 

 530 ; Cooke FL Bomb, ii, 766. Vern. Kulhdri, languli, rdjah-rar 

 (Ajrnir). 



A tall branching glabrous herbaceous climber. Eootstock a chain of 

 archedjfleshy cylindric tubers, 6-12 in. long, budding from the convex 

 upper side ; roots fibrous. Stem annual, leafy, 10-20 ft. long. Leaves 

 sessilefor nearly so, scattered or opposite, or sometimes ternately 

 whorled, 3-8 in. long, ovate -lanceolate, acuminate, tip spirally 

 twisted to form a tendril, base cordate. Flowers solitary or sub- 

 corymbose towards the ends of the branches, 3-4 in. across, persist- 

 ent ; pedicels 3-6 in. long, deflexed from the tip ; perianth segments 

 up to 2J in. long, linear-lanceolate with crisply undulate margins, 

 at first erect and greenish, afterwards becoming reflexed and turning 

 to yellow or orange and finally scarlet. Filaments golden-yellow, 

 IJ-lf in., spreading ; anthers nearly J in. long. Style up to 2 in. 

 long, the arms J in. Capsule linear-oblong, about If in. long. 



Common in Dehra Dun among bushes and eastwards along the Sub- 

 Himalayan tracts of Rohilkhand and N. Oudh, usually in the out- 

 skirts of forests, also in Bundelkhand and Mervvara. Flowers June 

 to October. DISTRIB. : Throughout Trop. India and in Ceylon, 

 ascending to 5,000 ft. on the W. Himalaya, and extending to Malaya, 

 Cochin China and Trop. Africa. 



