THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 265 



branches ; for, as the bark gets old, it assumes a brownish tinge. The 

 oldest bark is distinctly brown-black. Some Botanists describe the 

 bark as smooth. Brandis describes it more accurately when he says 

 it has irregular undulations. Brandis says that the wood of Alangium 

 Lamarckii is well suited for ornamental work. It is easily worked, 

 and when properly polished, it displays " a beautiful glossy surface." 

 It maj- be noted here that the petals and stamens are distinctly 

 deciduous. This fact is not specially mentioned by previous observers, 

 except by Wight in the letter-press accompanying his plate No. j^t^l^'* 

 This deciduous nature of the petals and stamens is well illustrated in 

 Wight's fig. 2 in the plate just referred to. It is also shown in my 

 illustration (plate P) accompanying this description, where, on the 

 part of an old flowering sprig marked B^ there are two unopened buds, 

 and below them are the persistent green accrescent calyx and the 

 white style capped with a multilobate stigma of the third flower, from 

 which the petals and stamens have fallen in due course. Apropos of 

 this compare the following description of Baillon : — *' Style girt at 

 " base with epigynous cupular or pulvinate disk, at stigmatose apex 

 " clavate or capitate, oftener minutely 4 — ^so • — lobate" (The Natural 

 History of Plants, vol. VI, p. 286). Observe, as against this de- 

 scription of the stigma, the remark of Dr. Trimen that the stigma 

 is large and only 4-lobed. (Hand Book of the Flora of Ceylon; 

 Part II, 1894, pp. 285-286.) 



The remarks which Wight and Arnott make at the conclusion of 

 the description of the Natural Order^ which they term Alangiece^ are 

 specially worthy of the consideration of those who would engage 

 themselves in the minute study of the very interesting flower of the 

 plant I am describing. " The portion of the torus," say Wight and 

 Arnott, " between the calyx and ovary, to which the stamens and 

 petals are attached, is of a different colour and texture from the above- 

 mentioned epigynous disk which induces us to refer the latter to the 

 style, not to the tarus."t 



I may add one word more with regard to the entire blossom-process 

 in Alangium Lamarckii. The following is the order every year. The 

 entire foliage of the previous year falls in the hot weather. Then 



* Icones Plantarum Indise Orientalis, vol. 1, 1840, Madras, 

 t Wight and Arnott's Prodromus, p. 025, 

 14 



