Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/635

THE INDIAN SPECIES OF ERIOCAULON. 193 plant but assume that Ruhland did, and follow him and Koerniche in iden- tifying the hairy heads as all E. setaceum Linn.

Floral bracts hairy, heads gray or white ... E. setaceum.

Floral bracts glabrous, heads black ... E. intermedium.

1. Eriocaulon setaceum L. ; Euhl. No. 134.; E. capillus- naidis in F. B. I. vi 572, No. 23. Stem slender, up to 15 inches long (? or more), covered in 'at least the upper part with long linear leaves. Scapes umbelled at the summit of the stem. Heads 1/6 in. diam., conical, gray or white. Floral bracts acute, with short white hairs on the backs. Male flowers : sepals 3 free or nearly so ; corolla lobes small; anthers black. Female flower: sepals 3 boat-shaped, concave round the seeds ; petals 3, oblanceolate with distinct glands. Plate 1.

Assam ; Khasia hills : Burma : Ceylon. In some the female petals are ciliate and with distinct gland well inside the margin ; in others they are glabrous with apical gland and distinct midrib.

2. E. intermedium Koern. ; Linnaea XXVII p. 601 ; Euhl. I.e. No. 135 ; F. B. I. probably E. setaceum and E. bifistulosum.

Similar in habit to E. setaceum Li?m, but the floral bracts glabrous, making the heads black. Flowers as in E. setaceum, but female petals unequal. Plate 2.

[?] Assam ; Khasia : Peninsular India ; Malabar : Ceylon.

Stems usually disciform, (0), but in some species branched but short, and in most tufted. Leaves usually short, the plants growing in marshy ground or still water, glabrous. Scapes tall. Heads 1/2 in. or less. Involucral bracts black with pale (colourless or yellow) base ; usually reflexed or horizontal, sometimes extending. far beyond the general outline of the head. Floral bracts usually black, but covered often so densely with white hairs that the heads are white or gray. Receptacle glabrous or villous.

As noted above in the Introduction (pp. 142, 146), some of the species of this second section show remarkable variation of the female sepals with locality. There also appears a progressive lengthening of the involucral bracts as the species pass southwards*. Thus on the Western Ghats E. Dianae has near Bombay bracts scarcely longer than the head, and further north bracts actually shorter and reflexed ; but where more typically developed has the bracts distinctly longer, and in Calicut several times or long as the head, approaching E. xeranthemum. Throughout the forms are connected by intermediates. On the other side of the Bay of Bengal there appears to be a similar series, but with a fewer stages collected. They differ from their like as the Western Ghats by the female sepals all being equal, whereas in the latter one sepal is narrow or reduced to a bristle.

tions ; see E. cuspidatum E. Edwardii and E. lanceoalatum.
 * A similar lengthening of the involucral bracts is shown in other sec-