THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 49 



It is not clear what Dr. Wight means, in the letter-press alluded to 

 above, by saying that the flowers are " sessile with respect to the 

 surface of the ground," for be it noted that there is a distinct scape 

 whether the tuber is underground or aboveground at the time the 

 spathe sprouts out. The spathe gives cover to the spadix on which, 

 from below upward, are the three distinct parts, viz. : I, the pistil-bear- 

 ing, and II, staminiferous portions, and above them, III, the lobulated 

 deep purple appendage. Blume supports me in this statement, for in 

 his Rumphia (vol. I, p. 141, 1835), he describes a distinct scape which 

 shoots forth from the tuber aboveground (the italics are mine — K.R.K.) 

 before the rains, when the tuber is entirely destitute of its large solitary 

 leaf or smaller solitary leaves from its superimposed bubils. 



Paxton, in his Botanical Dictionary (revised by Hereman, 1868), 

 says that Amorphophallus campanulatus is a native of Ceylon. I may 

 add that it is a native of Western India as well, especially of the 

 Konkan. 



With regard to the action of light on the flower-stalk of this plant, I 

 may be permitted to observe as follows : — When the spadix sprouts out 

 in a room where the direct rays of the sun do not reach, the purple 

 colour is very poorly developed, it is very faint. A marked difference 

 is noticed in the depth of the colour directly such a pale growing 

 flower-stalk, with its tuber, is bodily removed from a dark room to one 

 where it can enjoy the direct rays of an Indian sun. The pale purple 

 is at once changed into a deep bright purple which might shame the 

 Tyrian purple of ancient note. 



Some botanists say that the plant is perennial. It is a mistake to 

 suppose that either the plant or the tuber is perennial. It appears to 

 be strictly an annual plant. The following is its life-history so far as 

 I have observed it during the last ten years, if not more. Given a tuber 

 of the previous year, which matures here between October and Novem- 

 ber ; in March or April, or even as late as the end of May, the flower- 

 stalk appears ; this takes about a month to develop and throw out the 

 pollen ; ovulation, or fruit-forming, seldom, if ever, takes place in this 

 part of India ; the spathe, the spadix and the male and female flowers 

 then gradually wither away ; the peduncle shrivels just before the 

 rains, and as it is bodily falling off from the tuber, the leaf-bud of the 

 future year's plant sprouts out not very far from the base of the 



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