26 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



the larger tangentially flattened to horse-shoe-shaped ; mother- 

 tubers, with often numerous root-fibres much shrunk, grooved 

 and wrinkled with conical stumps (root-fibre bases), collapsed. 

 Innovation-bud a much depressed, broad, obtuse cone or hemi- 

 sphere, scales broad with a clasping base usually decaying after 

 sprouting. Stem erect, several feet high, straight, robust, simple, 

 terete, delicately pubescent in the upper part, otherwise usually 

 quite glabrous. Leaves scattered, 6-10, the lowest decayed at the 

 time of flowering, intermediate and upper leaves rather distant, 

 pubescent when young, at length glabrous, with the exception of 

 the nerves below, lower petioles up to 7'5 cm. long, intermediate 

 and upper much shorter, somewhat dilated at the base ; blades 

 dark-green above, paler below, orbicular or ovate-cordate or sub- 

 reniform, with narrow or wide sinus, 1-2 cm. deep, 7-9 cm. from 

 the sinus to the tip, 10-12 cm. across, 3-partite to |-, intermediate 

 division rhomboid-ovate from abroad cuneatebase, 3-lobed to the 

 middle, middle lobe much larger than the lateral, lateral 

 divisions trapezoid, very unequally 2-lobed to the middle, all the 

 lobes coarsely inciso-crenate or dentate, crense, spiculate or acute. 

 Inflorescence straight, racemose narrow, up to 30 cm. long, many- 

 flowered, rather dense, yellowish-tomentellous, and slightly 

 viscous ; lowest bracts resembling the preceding leaves, follow- 

 ing ovate or lanceolate, inciso-dentate, or dentate, uppermost 

 often entire ; pedicels erect or the lower ascending, lowest up to 

 5 cm., upper 2*5 cm. long ; bracteoles, if any, inciso-dentate, or 

 dentate, small. Sepals blue, pubescent ; uppermost helmet- 

 shaped, helmet oblique, sub-semi-orbicular in profile, slightly 

 concave in front and shortly beaked, about 20 mm. high and 20 

 mm. from tip to base, 10-13 mm. wide, very shortly and broadly 

 clawed, lateral sepals sub-oblique or orbicular or slightly 

 broader than long, up to 16 mm. long, obscuiely clawed ; lower 

 sepals elliptic or broad-oblong, obtuse, 12-14 mm. long. Nectaries 

 glabrous, claw erect, or slightly curved, 12-13 mm. long ; hood 

 leaning forward, rather crenulate. Filaments hispidulous in 

 the upper part or almost glabrous, 6 mm. long, broadly winged 

 to beyond the middle, wings gradually or abruptly running out. 

 Carpels 5, oblong, yellowish-tomentose, conniving in the flower, 

 then slightly divergent. Follicles oblong, slightly divergent 



