POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 617 



gum " Which is said to fall upon the plant and concrete like manna," 

 Dr. Dymock and his collahorateurs make do further remark than the 

 following :— -" The best authorities describe its properties as similar to 

 those of the plant, it would therefore seem to be nothing more than an 

 exudation of the juices of the plant which naturally contain some sugar." 

 Might I ask if Calotropis gigantea — the plant I am now describing, has 

 any exudations, save the rich, milky juice when the plant is wounded, 

 and the honey that pervades the staminal corona ? 



Surgeon- General Balfour and several other Botanists say that the 

 milky juice has been prepared like caoutchouc and gutta-percha, and 

 yields 50 per cent. I can claim no personal knowledge in this direction. 



The plant is known in Southern India as Yercum, and in Northern 

 India as Ah or Mud&r. Note that Ah is a corruption of the 

 Sanskrit Arh, meaning the Sun, and that Mudar is a corruption 

 of the Sanskrit Mand&r. In Bombay, the plant I am describing 

 is invariably known among the Marathi-speaking classes as Rut 

 The Gujratis call it Ahado. In the Sanskrit works I have con- 

 sulted, I find that Bhav-Prakash (op. cit,) recognizes two varieties 

 of the plant, namely, (1) the whit©> and (2) the red-flowered ; 

 so do Dhanvantariya Nighant, and Ftaj-Nighant (pp. 136-137 

 Anandashram Series, Foona, 1896.)* Madan Pal in his Nighant 

 (page 31, Calcutta, 1886) simply mentions two varieties of Mandar, 

 but he does not specify the colours of the flowers of the two 

 varieties. Mr Woodrow describes two flowering varieties of Calotropis 

 gigantea — purple and white. " The white variety," says this veteran 

 and consummate practical Botanist, "is well worthy of a place in o-ardens 

 because some of the white flowers have as pure a colour as it is possible 

 to find among flowers. White-flowered plants are met with rarely 

 over the great range of the common sort" (" Gardening in India," p. 

 384, Bombay, 1889). I remember having seen a similarly pure white- 

 flowered plant in Mr. L. B. Joglekar's garden in Thana, two years ao-o 

 in a bush of pinkish-purple flowered Mudars, self-grown from the seed 

 of a purple-flowered plant. To me this is an illustration of lusus naturae 

 among plants. Rheede has not failed to recognize the white and 

 purple-flowered species, f 



* As also Raghunath S. Lale, in his Guna Dosh Prakash, p. 143, Poona, 1892. 

 fit also prevails in the Sattara District among the purple-flowered plants. 



