2^6 BOTANICAL OBSERVATIONS 



Cor, One-petaled, funnel-form ; border four- cleft. 

 St am. Filaments four, thread-form, coloured, longer 



than the corol. Anthers roundish, incumbent. 

 Pi st. Germ above, egged. Style thread-form, co- 

 loured, longer than the stamens. Stigma thickish, 

 gaping. 

 Per. 

 Seeds. 



Flowers minute, bright lilac, or light purple, ex- 

 tremely beautiful. Panicles axillary, one to each leaf, 

 two-forked, very short in comparison of the leaves, 

 downy. Bracts awled, opposite, placed at each fork 

 of the panicle. Leaves opposite, petiolecl, very long, 

 egged, veined, pointed, obtusely notched, bright green 

 and soft above, pale and downy beneath. Branches 

 and petiols hoary with down. Shrub, with flexible 

 branxh.es ; growing wild near Calcutta ; its root has 

 medicinal virtues, and cures, they say, a cutaneous 

 disorder called mas ha, whence the plant has its name. 

 Though the leaves be not sawed, yet I dare not pro* 

 nounce the species to be new. See a note on the 

 Hoary Callicarpl : Sj5 Retz. Fascic. p. i . n. 19. 

 16. Srikga'ata. 

 S y n . Stingdta ca . 

 Yulg. Singhdra . 

 Lj>n. Floating Trapa. 



I can add nothing to what has been written on 

 this remarkable water-plant -, but as the ancient 

 Hindus were so fond of its nut (from the horns of 

 which they gave a name to the plant itself) that 

 they placed it among their lunar constellations, it 



may 



