516 JOUUNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL mSTORY S0CIET7, 1892. 



packed bright scarlet petals without stamens or pistil. It appears to inc to he 

 an exam|)le where the numerous stamens have been arrested in their growth and 

 convfrted into petals. Later on in May and June the Janibul {Syzi/(;ium janibn- 

 lunum) will blossom with its characteristic greenish flowers arranged in broad 

 piinicled cymes and bearing innumerable small filamentous stamens. Let me not 

 forget the two garden beautiies — the Lagerstroemia regina with its bold cvimi)led 

 lilac flowers blooming in copious panicles, and the Lagerstroemia Indlca with its 

 smaller white purple or pink crimpled flowers — wdiich are so much cultivated for 

 ornamental purposes. The male plant of Carica papaya bears abundance of cream- 

 coloured tubular flowers in long compound racemes. One point is worthy of notice 

 with regard to this plant. On the male flowering pedicels occasionally there 

 are hermaphrodite or small female flow^era, which bear fruit on long pedicels. The 

 female plant on the other hand never deviates from its feminine duty, aiid harbours 

 a female flower in its axils, which seldom fails to develop into luscious fruit. The 

 fruit grown on the male pedicel is very much smaller than that on the female 

 plant. The flowers of Guljafri [Tagetes erecta) of various forms and colours are 

 strongly scented but never used for scent-making. Often the lower classes, i. e., 

 villagers and kunbi women, wear wreaths of them in their hair. For other pur- 

 poses also they are much used by all cLxsses of Hindus. They are used for various 

 ceremonials. Thus, for instance, wreaths ten or twelve inches long are worn on 

 either side of the forehead and around by the Hindu bride and bridegroom when 

 they go through certain religious and domestic cei'emonies prior to the actual 

 marriage ceremonial. Long garlands are also made — eight to ten feet long, ending 

 in a mango-sprig and hung on new year's day in front of the entrance door of all 

 Hindu houses — from the Goodi or silken streamers raised to greet the dawning year 

 on that auspicious day, or to mark the sense ot joy on any other happy occasion. 

 To-morrow being the Hindu New Year's day, you will see this in front of Hindu 

 houses in the town. Why this agreeable function has fallen to the lot of this, 

 exotic — for the plant is merely the French Marygold, — and why not to any other 

 equally or even moi'e attractive flower, I cannot tell. It may be, perhaps, because 

 the flower is handy — perennially flowering, but being at its best in the rainy season^ 

 The Asclepiads furnish a few good examples of showy flowers. The curiously 

 crown-shaped purplish flowers of Cnloti-op is gigaidea, I have ah'eady referred to as 

 being sacred to Haniunan, the monkey-god. Every Saturday the devout follower 

 of this deity will present to the image a garland of llooi flowers with a spoonful 

 or two of teel oil and shindur (red lead). The rich scarlet flowers of Axcleplus 

 Curassavica capped with a bright yellow crown are to be seen in our gardens almost 

 as wild as any natural weed, though the plant is an exotic from the West Indies. 

 Holostemma Rheedii (Shirdodi) with its pink fragrant flowers, and Hoija virldjlora 

 (Hirandodi) throwing out its i)ale green flowers in drooping umbels, form the 

 prevailing creepers of our forests and hedges. Let me not omit to mention the 

 showy orange-yellow petalled richly filamentous (lowers of oiu- common hedge- 

 cactus known as Pliadya Nivdung {Opnnlia Dilleiui). Originally introduced from 

 America, it has become so naturalized in this country as almost to be a rank weed. 



