738 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



with a brown tinge in the axis-line. When mature, it is woody 

 and solid ; sinuous and nodose near the stem, sending down into 

 the soil many thick fibrillar Sometimes the root is 2ft. long. 

 Lf aves entire, alternate, slightly drooping, glabrous, undulate or 

 wavy, elliptic, ovate, lanceolate or oblong-rotund ; ribs promi- 

 nent on the ventral surface; margin of tender leaves distinctly 

 red all round. Petioles very short, channelled, sometimes am- 

 plf xicaul ; sometimes absent ; margins red. Stipules absent. 

 Flowers odourless, in terminal or axillary spikes (racemes) l-2ft. 

 long. Rachis of the spike glabrous. Bracts 2, superior, lateral, 

 3, says Rheede, glabrous, foliaceous. Rheede's descripion seems 

 to me to be more accurate (K. R. Kirtikar) ; the bracteoles are 

 persistent Calyx sessile, inferior, gamosepalous, tubular, herb- 

 aceous, covered with stalked, sticky scarlet glands throughout 

 its length, 5-10-ribbed ; upper half bright-red, often deep rose- 

 coloured, lower half brown-red, with just a shade of green near 

 the insertion of the bracteole. If the pedicel is at all present, it 

 is very short, oblong and deeply imbedded in the bracteoles. Co- 

 rolla bright-red, often deep rose-coloured, hypercratiform, hypo- 

 gynous tube long, slender, slightly angular, lobes 5, obovate or 

 obcordate, usually the latter ; stamens 5, opposite the petals, free, 

 very fiue, and delicate, pale-rose-coloured, partly whitish, slightly 

 arising above the " throat " of the Corolla-tube and looking pur- 

 plish. Filaments filiform, linear, dilated at base and inserted 

 at the base of the petals into the tops of 5 nectrial scales (Roxb.). 

 Anthers oblong, introse ; anther-cells separated at base, opening 

 by longitudinal slits. Pollen ovate. Ovary free, sessile, supe- 

 rior, 5-angular above, or 5-gibbous, as Boisseir terms it ; narrowed 

 at ^pex. Style single, slender, whitish, with 5 small segments 

 quite indiscernible and alternating with the stamens. Base of style 

 hairy. The union of the segments is a diagnostic character of 

 this plant. Stigmas 5, capillary, furnished on their inner sur- 

 face with several lines of glands. Ovule 1. Fruit a membran- 

 ous capsule, circuuiciss. Blume says the Dehiscence is valvate, 

 others say that the Dehiscince is subvalvate. Seed cylindric or 

 oblong, rotund, with 5 longitudinal striae. 



"Altogether resembling P. Zeylanica and perhaps only a 

 cultivated variety of it " (C. B. Clarkej. 



