Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/739

THE INDIAN SPECIES OF ERIOCAULON. 261 aequalia, glandulis magnis instructa, antherae nigrae. Flos ° sepala 2, angusta ; pefcala 3, late-oblaneeolata, magnis glandulis instructa. German tricoccum, Semina oblonga-eliptica, rubro-fusca.

Bombay, Mahabaleshwar on bill sides, on rocks, etc. Plate 16.

Remarkable for tbe very dense covering of white hairs on the floral bracts making tbe heads snow-white ; and for the broad female petals and their large glands.

In general appearance and in the broad female petals the plants are often very like plants of E. horslcy-kundae Fyson, Var megaloce- phala, No. 47, collected by Talbot and Meebold from the Bababoodans to the Nilgiris. The female petals are like also those of E. Geoffreyi, E. Gollettii, etc. where however the receptacle is glabrous. I cannot find anything in Ruhland's monograph to correspond with this and therefore suggest a new species.

Stem disciform. Leaves scapes and especially the involucral bracts hairy, rarely glabrous. Receptacle hairy. Flowers both male and female normal, (p. 148) but petals in some unequal.

About 5 species (10 in Ruhland I.e.) in India and Burma with extensions to China and Malaya possibly two in Africa.

TABLE SHOWING RELATIONSHIP AND DISTRIBUTION.

China.

Var macrophyllum...S. Burma and Straits — Brownianum ...4£ Settlements.

Type Khasia and N. Burma.

Var nilagirense S. India and Ceylon.

— Rhodae Wynaad and S. W. My- sore.

robusto-brownianum ^...Western Mysore.

— gracile and Var Kurzii Burma.

— Wightianum Burma.

~" — — Var Helferi Andamans.

— lanceolatum S. India on West Coast.

brownish at the base. Heads 1/3-1 inch diam.
 * Bracts of the involucre black, or

Floral bracts acuminate, hairy, giving the head an echinate appearance (W. Ghats). 23 robusto-brownianum.

Floral bracts dirty white, nearly glab- rous. (W. Ghats, of Mysore and Wynaad). 25 E. Rhodae.