Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/830

318 THE JOURNAL OP INDIAN BOTANY. boatshaped and enlarged down tho back. Soods oblong, quite smooth. Petals 3, linear-lanceolate, unequal. Plate 38.

Peninsular India; N. Mysore; Kanara, at sea-level, Malabar, and Concan.

The leaves make this a very distinct spocios.

Var. bracteata, (Talbot. No. 639 in Ilorb. Calc !) Involucral bracts longer than the head.

43. E. sexangulare Linn. (Wall. Cat. 6068 in Herb. Calc !) ; F.B.I, vi, 580, No. 29 ; Euhl. No. 186, and E. longifolium Neos., Ruhl. No. 25 ; Stem 0. Leaves 1/8 to 3/4 in. wide by 4-12 in., many ribbed, flat. Scapes many up to 18 in., stiff. Heads 1/3 in. or less, hemis- pherical or conical with eventually a truncate base. Involucral bracts pale, shining. Floral bracts broadly obovate, cuspidate. Flowers 3- merous or 2-merous. Female sepals two very boat-shaped, one flat or absent. Petal linear, with long hairs springing from its base, the whole forming a brush of slender filaments. Seeds flat ovate or sub- globose with parallel darker lines, and covered with peltate hairs. Plates 39 and 40.

On the western side of South India down to Ceylon, and through- out Burma and the Malay Peninsula.

The plants of the Western peninsula are larger on the whole than those of the Eastern, which are frequently 2-merous. In the F.B.I, the latter is given as a variety and perhaps it should be so considered, but in every other respect the two forms are identical and it would always be necessary to dis- sect the heads to determine the point. The Mysore plants connect them. For this reason the separation of these forms as two distinct species, E. sex- angulare L. & E. longifolium Nees, widely apart in different sections of the genus as is done by Ruhland seems particularly unhappy. Koerniche though he separated the American 2-merous species, placed these two to- gether observing that the 2-merous flowers and acute not shortly acuminate floral bracts distinguish them.

44. E. Thomasi. Fyson sp. nov. (Meobold 9104 et 9899 in Herb. Calc ! ) Habitu specii E. Thioaitcsii Hook. f. similis, sed capitulum globosum, involucrum reflexum, sepala duo. Caulis per-brevis. Folia caespitosa, lancoolata acuta, mucronata, glabra, 5-10 cm. longa, 0.4 to J..0 cm. lata. Pedunculi paulo ad duplico longiores, glabri ; sub-capi- tulo paulo crassi. Capitula globosa. Bractae involucrantes brevae, reflexae. Bractae flores superantes rhomboidocuneata summodorso puberulae. Flos. -?• sepala 2, naviculari-concava ; petala 3, angus- tissima linearia, longis pilosis barbata magnis glandulis instructa. Semina, oblonga, fusca. Flos o sepala 2, angusta ; petala 3 ; antherae nigrae. Plate 41.