Page:Illustrations of Indian Botany, Vol. 2.djvu/57

Rh Neilgherry and Pulney mountains. Royle considers his a new species and has called it C. cordata, mine does not appear to differ specifically from C. alpina, either in character, habit, or in the kind of locality where it grows.

It is almost amusing to peruse the characters by which Botanists, ever since the days of Linnæus, have been endeavouring to distinguish between C. lutetiana and C. alpina, which neither individually nor collectively would, in any doubtful case, enable any one, except by chance, to tell the one from the other, even though the species are certainly distinct. The genus until extended by Indian additions consisted of those two species only, the fruit of the former of which is 2-celled, with an erect seed in each cell, hence the generic character " ovarium 2-celled with an erect ovulum in each cell : fruit 2-celled, 2-valved, 2-seeded. Such being the case in one species it is inferred it must equally be so in the other, and the flower being small and fruit rarely produced, this is taken for granted. By taking it for granted Botanists have puzzled themselves in vain, for at least a century, to find good specific characters by which to distinguish them. The ovary at once supplies the long sought-for desideratum."

Ovary 2-celled — C. lutetiana.

Ovary 1 -celled — C. alpina.

Circœa alpina.

1 . Plant — natural size.

2. A flower, front view.

3. Flower and ovary, side view. 4. Stamens.

5. Stigma.

6. Detached ovary.

7. Cut transversely.

8. Cut vertically, showing the erect ovule — all more or less magnified.

This sub-order, like the last, consists of only one genus, Trapa, and differs essentially from it in the position of its ovules — erect in that, pendulous in this. They are floating plants, always found in water. The Indian species T. bispinosa is so very rare a plant, in southern India, that I have only once seen it growing and that on the Malabar Coast. The sub-order is thus characterized by Lindley.

"Calyx superior, 4-parted. Petals 4, arising from the throat of the calyx. Stamens 4, alternate with the last. Ovary 2-celled ; ovules solitary, pendulous ; style filiform, thickened at the base ; stigma capitate. Fruit hard, indehiscent, 1-celled, 1-seeded, crowned by the indurated segments of the calyx. Seed solitary, large, pendulous ; albumen none ; cotyledons 2, very unequal. Floating plants. Lower leaves opposite, upper alternate ; those under water cut into capillary segments ; petioles tumid in the middle. Flowers small, axillary."

The species of this genus, 5 in number, are all natives of Europe and Asia, one is a native of Europe, 2 of India proper, one of China, and one of Cochin China.

" The great seeds of Trapa are sweet and eatable. Those of T bispinosa form an extensive article of cultivation in Cashmere and other parts of the east, where they are a common food, under the name of Singhara nuts." — Lindley.

 

This is a small order of aquatic or sub-aquatic, herbaceous, very rarely suffruticose plants, but widely diffused, being found in every quarter of the globe. Their habit, generally, is so peculiar, that they were at one time even placed among monocotyledonous plants by some Botanists. Mr. Brown was the first to separate them as a distinct order and determine their affinities, so late as 1814. Since then all Botanists adopted his views until Dr. Lindley, in 1836, suggested that they might be reduced to a sub-order and ranged under Onagrariae, as. mentioned under that order. In this view he has been followed by Meisner and not without some 