624 JOURNAL, B03IBA Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



almost naturalized. I say " almost naturalized," as it appears to take- 

 kindly to any garden-soil in and around Bombay. Dalzell and 

 Gibson conclude their notice of this plant with the somewhat puzzlino- 

 remark that the plant ^' grows from Cabool to New Holland." Is 

 it meant here to say that the plant grows wild from the capital of 

 Afghanistan right down to the Austral regions we now know as- 

 Australia ? Or is it meant to say that the plant is cultivated in 

 gardens throughout the tract between Cabool and Australia ? Would 

 some better-informed Oriental Botanist come forward to elucidate- 

 this point ? 



Although, as I have said above, Kurz disposes of the description 

 of P. zeylanica in a few words_in his " Forest Flora of Burma " (1877)^ 

 it evidently not being a forest plant of any pretension whatso- 

 ever; in a communication to the " Journal of the Asiatic Society of 

 Bengal," which he published the same year, either simultananeous 

 with, or subsequent to, the publication of his " Forest Flora of Burma,"" 

 he makes the following remark as regards the habitat of the plant : — 

 *' In rubbishy places in and around villages, along river-banks and 

 toungyas* not unfrequent all over Burma, but apparently nowhere 

 really wild."t Such is my own experience on this side of India, 

 namely, that the plant is not wild here, but a cultivated one, which 

 has taken kindly to the garden areas of our province. 



Perhaps it would be useful to transcribe here the main features of 

 Plumhago zeylanica from the original Latin, expressed in his Hortus 

 Malaharicus (Vol. X, page 15, t. 8.) '' Height of the plant, 2-3 ft.,, 

 growing in sandy soil ; root, yellowish black, with hairy roots." 

 This hairy condition of the root I have been able to recognize in 

 many garden specimens of fresh root ; but I believe this is due mainly 

 to poor soil-nourishment, for, as observed before, in most of the 

 specimens I have examined from Thana and Bombay gardens. 

 Plumbago zeylanica (Linn.) fm-nishes a root which is distinctly " long, 

 succulent, often much contorted, and substantial" (K. R. K.). I 

 hold myself solely responsible for this statement, and I would request 

 every Bombay Botanist, who has specially studied the plant as I have 



* Toungya = Toung-ya, wliich in Burmese means a form of hill-cultivation carried on by- 

 burning the jungles (Balfour). See my note, p. 352, Vol. IX, Bombay Natural History 

 Journal, 1895. 



t S. Kurz— Contributions towards the Knowledge of the Burmese Flora, page 217, 

 Part II (Natural History, &c.), Vol XLVI, Calcutta, 1877 {Nos. I-VI). 



