1847.] Notes on the Botany of Sinde. 1167 



gin entire or occasionally sinuate toothed flowers rather longly pedi- 

 celled, blue; the corol greatly exceeding the half 5 cleft calyx; berry 

 red, smooth rather, larger than a pea. 



Physalis somnifera, var flexuosa, all Sinde, and Hala mountains. 



Hyocyamus muticus, Lin. Hala mountains. 



Apocynece. 



Rhazya stricta, Decaisne. This shrub is abundant in the Hala 

 mountains, and at their eastern bases, but particularly at Shahpoor. It 

 usually grows upon sandhills, and has somewhat the habit of our garden 

 Oleander, but does not rise to more than three feet. The flowers are pale 

 blue turning white by age. There is a small entire margined nectarium. 



AscJepiadece. 



Periploca aphylla, Dec. Bot. Jacq. All hilly parts of Sinde. 



This is my friend Dr. Falconer's Campelepis. Ann. Nat. Hist. Vol. X, 

 page 362. This shrub abounds in the Boogtee Beloch hills near Deyrah. 



The habit is that of Orthanthera Viminea ; the branches are devoid 

 of all pubes. The leaves are linear lanceolate (not ovate,) and are seen 

 only on the young surculi. The flowers are of a dark dull red colour ; 

 the long uncinate filiform processes of the faucial corona, are inflected 

 over the genitalia in the earlier stages of the flower, but subsequently 

 become reflexed through the divisions of the corol. The pollen of this 

 plant requires to be re-examined in the fresh flowers ; in my opinion it 

 not only differs from that of Periploca, but from the pollen of every 

 genus of the order. 



Orthanthera Viminea. All Sinde. 



With few exceptions the above noted plants are foreign to our Indian 

 Flora, flourishing between the parallels 25° and 30° N. Lat. or nearly 

 equivalent to the tract between Allahabad and Hurdwar. At first sight 

 it appears strange that so many northern forms should exist in Sinde 

 in excess of those found between the same parallels in India, but a 

 slight examination of the countries forming our northern frontier will 

 I think sufficiently account for it. The Himalaya mountains, the Hin- 

 doo Coosh, and probably the Tukt-i-Sulleemaun range, form an im- 

 passable barrier to certain classes of plants, but the lower ranges of the 

 Hala mountains, which in many places are not more than 1,500 feet 

 above the sea, offer no such obstacle ; besides this there is the coast line, 

 which with its constantly drifting sands offers a facile mode of trans- 



7 m 



