1080 BENGAL PLANTS. [Xyris. 
with corolla-lobes, or 0. Carpels 3, connate in a 1-locular or 
imperfectly es ovary; placentas 38, each many-ovuled, basal 
and confluent, or parietal; ovules anatropous; style terminal, 
aie or ake 3 stigmatic arms. Fruit a capsule, loculicidally 
3-valved, or with a circumscissile top. Seeds many, linear; testa 
longitudinally striate ; albumen floury ; embryo minute. 
974. Xyris Linn. 
Characters those of the order. 
Leaves flat, loriform, obtuse, 1-2 feet long ...............eeeeee eee er eee indica. 
Leaves narrowly linear, acute, 3-8 in. long ..paucifiora. 
2936. Xyris inpica Linn.; F. I. i. 179; F. B. I. vi. 864; E. D. 
x Des: 
Tirhut; N. Bengal; Orissa, Khurda. 
A tufted, _ herb. Vernac. Dabi- duba, chiné-ghas. 
2237. XyRIS PAUCIFLO illd.; F. B. I. vi. 365. 
of ie provinces. 
A ae tufted, aquatic herb. 
Order CXXXIX. COMMELINACEA, 
Herbs, prostrate or erect, rarely climbing, very rarely shrubby. 
Leaves costate, with sheathing bases; nerves parallel. Flowers 
more or less irregular, hermaphrodite or, by abortion, polygamous, 
often cymose ; cymes scorpioid, straight, or reduced to one flower; 
sometimes paniculate, often enclosed in spathe-like bracts ; floral 
pons usually small, opposite the pedicels, or obsolete, some 
mes herbaceous and distichously ara Perianth inferior, 
eee. 2-seriate ; outer segments 3, herbaceous, often persis- 
perianth-segments, all perfect or 2or more reduced to staminodes ; 
filaments often bearded with jointed hairs; anthers oblong °f 
lobose, often dissimilar; dehiscence introrse longitudinal, oT 
apical porous; cells sometimes discrete. Carpels 3, or some 
times 2, connate in a 8- or 2-celled, superior ovary ; ovules solitary 
or few, orthotropous on the inner angles of the cells; style te™ 
; stigma small. Fruit a loculicidal capsule, or indehiscent, 
with a thin, fragile, or a succulent pericarp. Seeds angled; test# 
