174 



N. Ord. ASCLEPIADACE^. Lindl., Veg. K., p. 623; Le Maout 



& Dec., p. 551. 

 Tribe Periplocece. 



Genus Hemidesmus,* R. Br. DC. Prod., viii,p.494. Species 

 3, natives of India. 



174. Hemidesmus indicus, R. Brown, in Mem. Werner. Soc., 



\,p. 56 (1811). 



Nunnari. Indian Sarsaparilla. 



Syn. Periploca indica, Willd. P. emetica, Eetz. Asclepias Pseudo- 

 Sarsa, Roxb. 



Figures. Rheede, Hort. Malab., x, t. 34; Delessert, le. Select., v, t. 55 ; 

 Wight, Ic. PI. Ind. Or., ii, t. 594; Burman, Thes. Zeylan., t. 83, f. 1. 



Description. A twining shrub with numerous very slender, 

 woody, diffuse, smooth stems, and a slender, slightly branched, 

 tortuous root; branches much elongated, whip-like, simple, 

 smooth. Leaves opposite, very shortly stalked, dark-green, 

 smooth, shining, variable in form, ovate, oval, oblong, lanceolate 

 or almost linear, usually broadest on the upper branches, acute at 

 the apex, margin entire ; stipules very small, caducous. Flowers 

 small, in little clusters of 5 or 6 in the axils of the leaves, shortly 

 stalked, the pedicel with several imbricated, acute, ovate, 

 minutely laciniated bracts, Calyx very deeply divided into 5 

 ovate, acute segments with a strong midrib, finely ciliated, 

 imbricate. Corolla rotate, very deeply 5-cleft, the segments 

 ovate, acute, valvate, texture leathery, deep purple and wrinkled 

 within, green outside, the short tube with a prominent laterally com- 

 pressed rounded ridge alternating with the segments. Stamens 5, 

 inserted at the very base of the corolla-tube immediately behind 

 the prominent ridges ; filaments long, slender, free for their whole 

 length,f connectives wide, prolonged beyond the anthers into 



* Name from 17^1, half, and foo>ioj;, a bond, from the partial connection of 

 the stamens. 



f So in the specimen examined. Brown, however, found them " basi 

 connata," and this is probably their usual condition. 



