Cehsia. PENTANDR1A MONOGYNIA. $0» 



3. C. comosa, Willd. spec, i, 1 19S. 



Erect, annual. Leaves lanceolate. Spikes cylindric, tufted. 

 Found ill most parts of India in gardens, and like the last thrives 

 best duiing ihe rainy and cold seasons. 



4 C. cermia, R. 



Annual, erect, ramous. Leaves lanceolate, acute. Racemes ter- 

 minal, cylindric, with long sterile, ramous, pendulous tai.s. Cap- 

 sules operculed, many. seeded. 



A native of the tops of the Rajmzma! hills, where Mr. W. Rox- 

 burgh first found it in great abundance wild amongst fragments of 

 a rich Iron ore and from thence sent the seeds to the botanic garden 

 at Calcutta, where it grows well, and continues in gaud) blossom, 

 during the whole of the cold season. 



Root annual. — Stem erect, with numerous, ascending, ramous branch- 

 ess, s ighlly striated, colour from green to a deep liver colour. — Leaves 

 alternate, lanceolate, acute, smooth, entire, from one to six inches ong, 

 and broad in proportion. — Stipules, or rather the lower opposite 

 pair ol leaves of the branches and brancblets often present, and then 

 falcate, as in C. argentea, &c. but I do not think their preseucs 

 or absence can in any of ihe species found in India, be taken 

 into the specific character; for in some plants they are tolerablv 

 constant, whereas in others of the same species reared from the same 

 seed no sign of them can be traced. — Racemes terminal ; the fertile 

 fl wer-bearing part simple, cylindric, but curved from ihe weight of 

 the long, pendulous, lovely crimson, sterile panicle into which they 

 divide, and which gives to this charming species its great beauty. — 

 Tloxcers numerous, short-peduncled, before and during expansion of a 

 blight, vivid purple colour, but as the seed advances to maturity the 

 margins of the scales become pure white, more or less broad. — Bractes 

 tapering, acute, one larger under the base of the pedicel, and two on 

 its apex, pressing the calyx laterally, and about half its length. — Calyx; 

 leaflets dagger-pointed, rather longer than the stamina.— Neclari/ ten- 

 parted, the five long, subulate, alternate ones are autheiilerous, the 



