CALYCIFLOR^ 225 



of America naturalized in India. The milky juice of 

 the unripe fruit possesses a digestive property, and 

 is often used to make meat tender while cooking. It 

 is a dioecious plant, often rendered monoecious during 

 cultivation. If a male plant is pollarded it often puts 

 forth new heads which bear female flowers and fruits. 



Nat. Order 14. Begoniacece. — It is represented by 

 the genus Begonia, which is found in gardens only 

 in the plains of Bengal. Begonias are usually suc- 

 culent herbs, with mostly oblique leaves and epigy- 

 nous unisexual flowers, with indefinite stamens. The 

 leaves or fragments of them when planted produce 

 buds which ultimately give rise to plants. Compare 

 with this the buds of pathar-kucha and himsagar. 

 The plants of this order are mostly xerophytes. Two 

 common species in Chhota Nagpur and Sylhet respec- 

 tively are Begonia picta and B. barbata. 



Nat. Order 15. Cactacece. — Herbs, shrubs, or trees, 

 with thick, globular or columnar, or flattened and 

 jointed, or many-angled stems. Leaves usually re- 

 duced to tufts of spines or prickles or small tubercles. 

 Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, epigynous, and soli- 

 tary; sepals, petals, and stamens numerous and acyclic. 

 Carpels numerous, ovary inferior, i-celled, placentas 

 many, parietal. Fruit a berry. Seeds exalbuminous. 



This is an order mostly confined to America. 

 Prickly Pear or nag-phani or phani-monsha (Opuntia 

 Dillenii) (see fig. 26) is an American plant naturalized 

 in India. Notice the gradual transition from bracts 

 through sepals to petals. It is well known for its 

 flattened, spinous, jointed, green stems, and is much 

 used as a hedge plant. The absence of leaves and the 

 presence of thick epidermis and hard, thick-set spines 

 are adaptations for the storage and conservation of 

 water necessary in dry sandy situations in which the 



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