74 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
karavah (Pushkara-named), Abja (born from water), Ambhoruha 
(born from water), Padma (A lotus), Pundarika (A lotus), 
Pankaja (born from mud), Nala (Lotus), Nalina (Lotus), Arvinda 
(Lotus), Mahotpala (great lotus . 
Vern . : — Kanwal (H.) (Kumaon), Padma (B.) ; Padam 
(Uriya) ; Besenda, Pabbin (N.-W. P.) ; Pamposh ; Kanwal Kakri 
and blie or phe (root.', gatte (Seed) (Pb.) ; Pabban (plant), bhe 
root, Paduro (Seeds), Nilofar (drug) (Sind) ; Kungwelka-gudda 
(Dec.); Kamala-Kankadi (Bomb.); Tavarigadde ; tavaribija 
(Kan.) ; Paud-Kanda (Poona) ; Shivapdutamara-ver, ambal 
(Tam.); Erra-tamara veru (Tel.); Tamara (Malay.!. Tamarai 
(Tam.) Ceylon ; Nelun (Sinhalese). 
Habitat : — Throughout India, extending as far to the N. W.P. 
as Cashmir. Abundant in Bombay, Thana district, Ceylon, 
Persia, China, Japan, Malay Islands, Tropical Australia. 
An erect, large herb of still waters, extensively creeping. Root- 
stock stout, creeping. Leaves raised several feet high above 
water ; peltate, 2-3 ft. diam., membranous glaucous, cupped. 
Flowers magnificent, rose-red or white, sweet-scented, 4-10 
in. diam. Peduncles and petioles 3-6 ft. high, full of spiral 
vessels, with stumpy, scattered prickles. Sepals 4-5, inserted 
on the top of the scape, caducous. Petals and stamens 
many, hypogynous, many-seriate, caducous, elliptic, con- 
cave, veined. Anthers adnate, with a clubbed appendage, 
produced beyond the anther-cells. Ovaries many, 1-celled, 
loose, sunk in a flat top of an obconic, spongy torus (not 
fleshy torus). The torus or receptacle 3-4 in. high, flat 
at top, 2-4 in. wide. Style short, exserted ; stigma capi- 
tate. Ripe carpel, seed-like, % in. long, ovoid, glabrous. This 
is fruit and seed at one and the same time ; edible. Pericarp 
black, bony, smooth. Albumen absent, cotyledons fleshy, thick, 
enclosing the large green folded plumule. Testa spongy 
brown. 
Hermann gives Nelumbo as the Singhalese name (Trimert). 
In Sanskrit, the white variety is called Pundarik ; the pink is 
called Kokonad, and the blue variety is called Indivara. I have 
never come across this third blue variety in the Konkan or the 
