_ 876 BENGAL PLANTS. (Gomphrena. 
777. Gomphrena Linn. 
Herbs, pai or villous, with usually thickened nodes ; leaves 
are entire. Flowers short or long, white or coloured, her- 
odite, Cie capitate ; bracts scarious ; bracteoles short or 
vgs concave, keeled winged or crested. Perianth compressed 
or not, of 5 sepaline, lanceolate, acuminate, nearly equal segments. 
Stamens 5; filaments linear, united below in a long tube, 5-fid at 
apex, usually with no intervening staminodes; anthers 1-celled, 
oblong or linear, sessile or stipitate, in the sinuses of the sta minal 
tube. Carpels forming a subglobose or turbinate, 1-celled ovary ; 
ovule solitary, pendulous from a long, basal funicle. Fruit a 
compressed utricle, ovoid or oblong. Seed inverse, lenticular; 
testa coriaceous; embryo annular, surrounding the floury albu- 
men; cotyledons narrow or epee radicle nia 
1715. GompHRENA GLoBosa Linn . Li. 6 . B. I. iv. 782. 
he provinces, deiincaduatl wee as an escape. 
A tall, branching, annual herb. Vernac. Gul-makhmal. 
Order CIII. CHENOPODIACEA. 
Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs, sometimes mealy or lepi- 
dote, occasionally fleshy. Leaves alternate, rarely opposite, 
simple, usually entire, flat or rarely semiterete or cylindric, 
Sepvoqemeenayh or fleshy, sometimes obsolete ; stipules 0. Flowers 
small, almost always green, hermaphrodite or 1-sexual, usually 
regular, ae dimorphic; bracts 1 or 0; bracteoles 0 or 2: 
Perianth simple, sepaline, of 3-5 free or connate segments, 
imbricate in bud; in ¢? flowers often 0. Stamens beers 5, 
opposite the perianth-segments, hypogynous or perigynous; fila- 
ments almost always free, occasionally with ttardehitty “atl 
nodes; anthers didymous or sagittate, 2-locular; dehiscence 
longitudinal, anterior or lateral. Disk 0 or annular, lining the 
a superior, 1-celled ovary, free or enclosed in the perianth-base; 
ovule solitary, basal or lateral, inlapthiarseinas: style terminal, 
short or long ; stigma capitate, 2-3-lobed, or styles 2-8, or stigmas 
2-5, free or slightly united, sessile. Fruit a small, membranous, 
coriaceous, or fleshy utricle, rarely a circumscissile capsule, gene- 
rally enclosed in the perianth unless perianth be absent. Seed 
