Eettheina.] LJSGUMINOSu^. 237 



the standard. Pod 3-4 in. long and about half as broad, the faces 

 traversed with close oblique plaits, and densely clothed with yellow- 

 brown irritating bristles. Seeds 2. 

 Dehra Dun. Distbib. : Outer Himalaya from Jaunsar to Kumaon, 

 also in S. India and in Ceylon. Flowers during the rains, and the 

 fruit ripens in the cold season. 



3. M. pruriens. DC. Prod, ii, 405 ; Boyle III. 191 ; F. B. I. ii, 187 ; 

 Watt E. D. Carpopogon pruriens, Boxl. Fl. Ind in, 283. M. prurita, 

 Eooh. ; W^^- A. Prod. 255 ; D. ^ G. Bomb, Fl. 70. Vern. Kdunch, gdunch 

 (Cowitch or Oowhage). 



A slender climbing annual. Branches appressed-pubescent, at length 

 glabrescent. Leaves 6-9 in . long ; leaflets 3-6 in. long, ovate-rhomboid, 

 membranous, green and glabrescent above, lustrous with grey silky 

 pubescence beneath ; petioles 2|-4| in. Racemes drooping, on short 

 peduncles, 1-12 in. long, 3-30-flowered, rachis finely silky : bracts ^ in.; 

 hracteoles smaller, lanceolate. Calyx f in. long, with a few pungent 

 bristles, tube hardly as long as the lower lanceolate tooth. Corolla 1^- 

 1-| in. long, purplish ; icings rather shorter than the slightly incurved 

 keel. Pod 2-3 in. long, 5-6- seeded, turgid, ridged longitudinally, 

 recurved in the lower half, abruptly hooked at the tip, clothed with 

 dense very pungent subpersistent pale-brown or grey bristles. 



Dehra Dun, Siwalik range and Sub-Himalayan tracts, also in Bundel- 

 khand and Merwara. Distrib. : Punjab Plain, from the base of the 

 Himalaya to Ceylon and Burma. Cosmopolitan in the tropics, and 

 often cultivated. Flowers during the rainy season. The root and seeds 

 are medicinal, and the irritating hairs of the pods are used as a vermi- 

 fuge. 



4. M. capitata, W, (^ A. Prod. 255 ; F. B. I. ii, 187 ; Prain in Journ, 

 As. Soc. Beng. LXVI (1897 J, 409. Carpopogon capitatum, Roxb. Fl. Ind. 

 Hi, 284. 



Annual. Stems and under surface of the leaflets glabrescent. Flowers 



few, in corymbs. Calyx and corolla as in preceding. Pod 5-6 in. 



long, clothed with short deciduous bristles. 

 Siwalik range (Kan.iilal) . Disteib. : Foot of the W. and E. Himalaya, 



C. India and Chota Nagpur ; also in Java. Flowers during the rainy 



season. 



25. ERYTHRINA, Linn., Fl. Brit. Ind. ii, 188. 



Trees with prickly branches. Flowers large, coral red, in dense 

 racemes, produced usually before the development of the large 

 pinnately 3-foliolate stipellate leaves. Calyx oblique, spatha- 

 ceous, finally slitting down to the base, or campanulate-bilabiate. 

 Fetals very unequal ; standard always much exserfeed and very much 

 exceeding the keel and wings. Upper stamen free down nearly to 



