THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 16 



of my boyhood I used to hear of the fifth proposition in the first book 

 of Euclid as the pons asinorum. Were it pardonable to parody 

 this quaint expression, in the advanced days of my scholastic career, 

 I should say that the Moringa pterygosperma has ever been the pons 

 botanicorum prcestantissimorum. For witness how various botanists 

 have variously attempted to classify this plant, and yet how far we 

 are, even at the present day, from arriving at a satisfactory solution of 

 the difficult question of giving it its proper place among the natural 

 orders. 



The classification of plants in Hooker 's Flora of British India^hio^ 

 from the extreme care with which it is compiled, with the assistance of 

 some of the best and most accomplished botanists now living, must at 

 all times, at any rate for many years to come, be a standard work of 

 reference to Indian botanists, is based on Bentham and Hooker's ex- 

 haustive Genera Plantarum. Hooker accordingly places the Natural 

 Order Moringece next to Sapindacece among the DiscAflorce^ a division 

 which was generally, in days gone by, included among the Thala- 

 miflorce, but which was first made into a separate division by Bentham 

 and Hooker. The following are the characteristics of the division 

 Disciflorce : — " Flowers generally with a conspicuous disk, on or about 

 which the stamens, which are nearly always definite, are inserted. The 

 flowers are mostly regular ; in the Moringece they are markedly 

 irregular, somewhat resembling those of the Papilionacece^ which form 

 one of the sub-orders of the natural order Leguminosce. 



" The Moringa pterygosperma tree," says Mr. E. M. Holmes, f.l.s. 

 (The Tropical Agriculturist of Ceylon, Vol. Ill, 1883-84, page 285), 

 " is a very interesting one from a botanical point of view, being 

 allied to the Leguminosce in habit, and, indeed, very erroneously 

 included by Linnasus in the genus Guilandina. It resembles the 

 plants of this family in having compound leaves, stipules" (glands 

 according to some botanists, as already mentioned. — K.R.K.) 4 ' and 

 flowers which chiefly differ from those of the tribe Ccesalpinece in 

 the odd petal being inferior, in the one-celled anthers, tricapillary 

 ovary, and anatropous ovules. In the last two characters it 

 approaches Violacece, as well as in the three-valved fruit, parietal 

 placentation, and hollow apex of the style. In properties it resem- 

 bles the Cruci/erce, Capparidacece and Resedacece. By Grisebach it was 



