Notes on Indian Botany. 161 



D. C, leads to the inference, that he had not examined mi- 

 nutely its flowers, but took his character entirely from the 

 exterior organs, and further, that had he observed them, 

 he would most probably have constituted this the type of 

 a new genus. Under this impression I now do that which I 

 think he should, and would have done, had leisure permitted 

 him more critically to examine the plant. And as Cassinr's 

 genus Oligolepis is unquestionably a genuine Sphaeranthus and 

 his most appropriate name vacant, I transfer it to this new 

 genus, with the following generic character. 



OLIGOLEPIS (R. W. not Cassini.) 

 Capitula heterogamous about 5-flowered, densely aggre- 

 gated into an oblong conical glomerul. Flowers all tubular : 

 female slender, pedicelled, subcylindrical, 3-dentate, 1 -series 

 (usually 4) in the circumference : hermaphrodite in the 

 centre, sessile, solitary, 5-toothed, much larger* Style in the 

 central flowers undivided. Achsenium beakless, of the fe* 

 males terete, hairy, of the hermaphrodite obsoletely 4- sided, 

 glabrous : pappus none. 



Glabrous herbs, with decurrent subspathulate leaves and 

 dense, sessile, axillary, glomerul : involucrum 1 -series, usu- 

 ally 1 -scale to each flower, or fewer by abortion ? that of the 

 hermaphrodite much larger acuminated ; those of the females 

 smaller, broad, truncated at the apex, adhering at the base 

 to the pedicel of the flower, all glabrous. Corolla of the 

 hermaphrodite flowers composed of large quadrangular cells 

 easily conspicuous under a low magnifier. 



O. amanthoides, (R. W.) Icones No. 1149, inadit. Sphae- 

 ranthus amaranthoides, Burm Fl. Ind. D. C. Prod. 5 — 3/0 

 usually met with in paddy fields near the sea-coast. 



GISEKIA. 



This genus was established by Linnaeus on an obscure 

 Ured-like procumbent plant of frequent occurrence in pas- 

 tures and neglected grounds in Southern India, to commemo- 



