THE FOTSONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 313 



Tuber. — Large, placentiform, fleshy, containing plenty of starch ; 

 rounded, with a depression on the top where the scape and petiole 

 arise : whence also several cylindrical, fleshy, thickish roots arise, 

 divided into numerous fine filamentous rootlets. Colour, yellowish- 

 brown ; size, varying from two to six inches or even eight in diameter 

 from side to side ; two to four inches from top to bottom. Epidermis 

 rough, pitted, inseparable. Tuber-substance on section whitish, 

 firm. 



Leaf. — Large, radical, solitary, petiolate, glabrous, umbrella- 

 shaped ; tripartitely decompound. Lobes deeply pinnatifid ; secon- 

 dary segments or leaflets of the tripartite lobes (pinnoe) lanceolate, 

 acuminate, four to six inches long, narrow at the base ; deep green in 

 colour ; the ribs or principal veins running straight from the mid-rib 

 to the margins at equal distances, yellow in colour on the under-surf ace 

 of the leaflets, and ver}^ prominently marked ; these principal veins 

 are ultimately reticulate. The outermost lobes are pinnatipartite. 

 The middle lobe slightly pinnate, or sometimes, as in the accompany- 

 ing plate, a solitary simple leaflet, ovate, acuminate. Margins of the 

 leaflets entire, sinuated. Petiole, solid, succulent, cylindrical ; shorter 

 than the scape, dividing into three sub-divisions, each called by 

 Blume [Rumphia) a " rachis," although the term "rachis," accord- 

 ing to Lindley, is strictly confined to the divisions of the petiole 

 of the leaves {nic) of Ferns, as also to the axis of an inflorescence. 

 The so-called " Hachis " of Blume is deeply sulcate, bordered 

 with a decurrent expansion of the lower margins of the lateral 

 leaflets. 



Scape. — One or two feet long, cylindrical ; oftener compressed 

 about the mid-part ; | — 1 inch in diameter, or of the size of the 

 thumb at the apex of the tuber, where it is loosely enfolded by two 

 membranaceous greenish-red scales ; the scape of the size of the little 

 finger at the most at the top. Colour variegated, with linear streaks 

 of white, purple, pink, green and brown. 



Spathe. — Terminal, solitary, erect, clavate, ten to twelve inches 

 long, thick coriaceous convolute below, ciicullate above (cucuUate 

 meaning — upper margins curved inward so as to resemble the point 

 of a slipper or a hood). The spathe as a whole is cymbiform, or 

 boat-shaped, opening about the middle ; greenish -yellowish, brown 



