THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 489 



GLORIOSA SUPERB A {Llnii.). 

 Marathi — ??r^r^rT- 



(Natural Order — Liliace^.) 



The plant is an annual climber, wild in hedges and jungles ; often 

 cultivated in gardens for its beautiful flowers. 



Root — Tuberous, fleshy, budding from the convexity above ; 

 tubers cylindrical or flattened, in some parts sometimes slightly 

 twisted. 4 to 9 inches long; about an inch thick. Substance 

 internally white, mealy, jiucy, with a slight acrid odour. The exter- 

 nal appearance of the tuber is brown. This is due to the thin paper- 

 like epidermis which encloses it at all parts of the bulb, except the 

 growing point, which latter looks like the eye of a potato. The 

 epidermis is easily removed by the mere handling of the bulb, and 

 is fragile. The old bulb, as the plant matures, shrivels up, and 

 gradually throws out a new bulb at right angles which terminates 

 in a growing point. It is from this growing point that the future 

 plant sprouts out. The rootlets are chiefly confined to the part of 

 the bulb directly opposite to where the stem is situated. 



Stem — Usually a single stem arises from the bulb. It may 

 branch off almost immediately after it leaves the tuber. The stem 

 is put down as 10—20 ft. by Hooker {Flora Br. Ind.), but is often 

 much longer than that in the jungles, v/here it is seen in its natural 

 condition. "When the stem branches off immediately on leaving the 

 tuber underground, three or four slender cylindrical green sprouts 

 shoot up above the ground, thus making it appear that they are 

 separate plants from one and the same bulb ; but it is not so. 

 One bulb, one plant is the rule invariably in a number of bidbs 

 I have carefully examined. The stem is nearly cylindrical, and though 

 herbaceous, is tough and interspersed with woody fibres in close- 

 packed bundles. The medulla of the stem is slightly pithy and full 

 of watery juice when fresh ; hollow when the plant dries up and the 

 pith shrivel s up. At each insertion of the leaf, which is arranged 

 in pairs in an opposite manner, the stem deviates from the median 

 line, thus giving the whole plant an angular or regular wavy 

 appearance. 



