304 LEGUMINOSM. [Mbzoneueum. 



Largely grown as a hedge plant within the area and throughout India, and 

 almost naturalized in many places. It is a native of Trop. America. 

 The stems yield a fibre suitable for making into paper. The branches 

 are lopped for fodder, and good charcoal is produced from the wood. 



63. MEZONEURUM* Desf.; Fl. Brit. Ind. ii, 257. 



Robust woody prickly climbers. Leaves abruptly bipinnate. 

 Flowers in ample panicled racemes. Calyx very oblique, usually 

 deeply cleft, with a basal or intertubal disk, the lobes imbricated, the 

 lowest largest, covering the others io bud like a hood. Petals 

 spreading, obovate-spathulate, subequal or the upper smallest. Sta- 

 mens free, declinate, usually exserted ; anthers oblong, uniform. 

 Ovary sessile or shortly stipitate, declinate, few- or many-ovuled ; 

 style filiform ; stigma small, capitate, the margin often fringed. 

 JPod large, oblong, fiat, thin, indehiscent, with a broad wing down the 

 upper suture. Seeds compressed, orbicular. — Species about 15, inhabit- 

 ing the tropics of the E. Hemisphere. 



M. cucuUatum, W. ^ A. Prod. 283; D. <Sf G. Bomb. Fl. SO; Brand. For, 

 Fl. 155 ; F.B.I, ii, 253. Csasalpinia cucuUata, Boseh., Fl. Ind. ii, 35 S.-^ 

 Vera. BisTcoprah (Oudh). 



A large climber. Branches glabrous, armed with small dark recurved 

 prickles. Leaves 6-12 in. ; jpi ince 2-5 pairs ; leaflets opposite, 4-5 pairs, 

 ovate, acute, widely cuneate at the unequal base, rigidly subcoriaceous, 

 dark-green and shining above. Flowers in simple or branched rigid 

 racemes 4-8 in. long, arranged in terminal or axillary panicles 1- 1 i ft. 

 long ; main rachis terete, glabrous ; pedicels slender, jointed above 

 the middle. Calyx deeply cleft, glabrous, yellow, leathery ; anterior 

 lobe f in., cucuUate, obtuse, the others orbicular, tube shallow ; disk 

 basal. Corolla greenish, less than i in. across ; petals suborbicular ; 

 standard 2-lobed, shorter but wider than the rest. Stamens exserted. 

 ciliate at the base. Ovary l-2-ovul3d. Pod 3-4 in. long, and I5 in. 

 wide (including wing), thin, faintly reticulated. Seeds usually solitary. 



Forests of Dehra Dun and Oudh. Distbib, Outer Himalaya from Nepal 

 eastward to the Khasia Hills, and from Chota Nagpur to W. and 6. India ; 

 also in the Andamans. Flowers Nov. —Feb. Dr. Prain is inclined to 

 refer the N. W. Indian examples to var. grandis F.B. I. I.e. (Coesal- 

 pinia grandis, Heyne), which may indeed prove to be a distinct 

 species. 



64. PTEROLOBIUM, E. Br. ; Brit. Ind. II, 259. 



Robust woody prickly climbers. Leaves abruptly bipinnate- 

 Flowers in panicled racemes. Calyx deeply cleft, with the disk 

 near the base, the lobes imbricated, the lowest longer and more 

 hooded than the others. Petals spreading, oblong, clawed, equalling 



