Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/155

125

I had an opportunity of running through some of Mr. P. F. Fyson's plants recently collected in the Nilgris and I find two of them rather interesting.

Juncus bufonius Linn, so far known to occur only in Northern India from the plains to 13,000 ft. in the Himalayas, is a new find at 7,000 ft. in a marsh 6 miles out of Ootacamund. This plant like a few other adds to the 'floristic affinity' which to a certain extent exists between the Nilgiris and the Himalayan region. Fruiting in September.

Pyrenacantha volubilis Hook. A dioecious climber which has thus far been recorded in the Madras Herbarium from Kambakkam (Chingleput), Madura and Tinnevelly hills and noted in Gamble's Madras Flora as collected only in the Pulney and Tinnevelly hills, also hails from Kallar at 1,500 ft. on the Nilgris. The piece collected is of a male plant. Flowers in October. 16-10 19.

Impatiens Tangachee Bedd—in Gamble's new Flora of the Madras Presidency is given as occurring on the Western Ghats, in river beds on the higher slopes of the Annamalais, above 4,000 ft. and in the 'Bolumpatti Hills of Coimbatore.' Fourteen years ago I was shown the plant growing in a stream at about 5,000 ft. on the Pulneys, by an enthusiastic amateur collector, who pointed out that as it was rare it would be well not to make its whereabouts known generally. Dr., now Sir Alfred, Bourne had also collected the species from the same stream, in 1899.

Heterocarpus Wight—was a genus differing from Commelina mainly in the fruit, of which one cell contains one seed only and re- mains indehiscent and attached to the pedicel, the other two cells each with two seeds falling away. Last year I collected on the higher downs of the Pulneys two plants, identical in every way except that one is hairy all over and the other glabrous, of a blue flowered Commelina which Mr. C. C. Calder, of the Koyal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, tells me are undoubtedly Wight's Heterocarpus glaber and H. hirsutus : but points out that according to Wight the flowers are yellow. I find on enquiry at the herbarium in Coimbatore that the species of Heterocarpus, H, glaber, collected in Palghat (Wight's locality) is certainly yellow or orange. A specimen of