278 COMMELINACE&. [ANEILEMA. 



Stem 6-12 in. long, creeping and rooting at the nodes, leafy, sparingly 

 branched. Leaves sessile, fiat, 1J-2 in. long, linear-oblong, acute or 

 subacute, glabrate, base cuneate. Peduncles J- in., rigid ; pedicels 

 axillary or terminal. Petals white or pink. Filaments all naked. 

 Capsule linear-oblong, acute, J- in. long, Seeds 2-seriate, about 

 16 or more in each cell, scabrid or flocculent. 



Upper Gangetic Plain, usually in wet ground ; Moradabad (T. Thomson). 

 DISTBIB. : Eastwards to Bengal and Assam and extending to Java. 



5. A. vaginatnm, R. Br. Prod. 271 ; Clarke in DC. Mon. Hi, 216 ; 

 F. B. vi, 381 ; Prain Beng. PI. 1084 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb, ii, 79. 



Boot fibrous, -the fibres stout and almost fleshy. Stem decumbent, 

 6-18 in. long, rooting at the lower nodes, very slender, flaccid ; 

 branches suberect, ending in filiform peduncles with distant bracts. 

 Leaves 3-8 in. long, linear, acuminate, flat ; sheaths short, open, 

 ciliate. Flowers small, 1-3, fascicled in the axils of distant bracts 

 along the filiform terminations of the branches ; bracts J-J in. long, 

 strongly ribbed ; pedicels very slender, puberulous, usually twice- 

 jointed Sepals % in. long, obtuse. Petals orbicular, blue. Stamens 

 2, perfect, and with bearded filaments ; sterile stamens 3-4, usually 

 naked and shorter. Ovary 2-celled ; cells 1-ovuled. Capsule globose, 

 cuspidate ; cells 1 -seeded or empty. Seeds 3-gonously conic, trun- 

 cate at one end narrowed at the other, slightly rugose, black. 



Common in rice fields and wet places. DISTRIB. : Throughout Trop. 

 India and in Ceylon, extending to China. 



3. CYANOTIS, Don ; Fl. Brit. Ind. vi, 384. 



Herbs, prostrate or creeping. Leaves small. Flowers in axillary 

 and terminal scorpioid cymes, formed of large imbricate 2-seriate 

 secund foliaceous falcate bracteoles, the petals and stamens alone 

 exserted, rarely with the corolla-tube exserted ; flowers sometimes 

 in exposed racemes or fascicled in the ochreate leaf -sheath. Sepals 

 3, subequal, free or connate below. Petals 3, subequal, often 

 united in a tube below, limb orbicular. Stamens 6, all perfect, 

 subequal, hypogynous or epigynous ; filaments usually bearded, 

 often inflated towards the apex, anthers oblong. Ovary 3-celled ; 

 ovules 2 in each cell, collateral, one erect the other pendulous. 

 Fruit a 3-celled loculicidal capsule. Seeds usually 2 in each cell, 

 superposed, cubical or pyramidal, usually rugose. Species 35, 



