that it was the mansion of a benevolent nymph. Even the Véda celebrates it; as in the following text of the Atharvana: “ May “ Dúrvà, which rofe from the water of life, which has a hundred "roots and a hundred ftems, efface a hundred of my fins and prolong my existence on earth for a hundred years!" The plate was engraved from a drawing in Dr. ROXBURGH's valuable collection of Indian graffes. 12. Cus'A; or Cus'HA: SYN. Cut'ha, Darbha, Pavitra. VULG. Cusha. KOEN. Poa Cynofuroides. Having never seen this most celebrated grass in a state of perfect inflorescence, I class it according to the information, which Dr. RoxBURGH has been fo kind as to fend me: the leaves are very long, with margins acutely fawed downwards but smooth on other parts, even on the keels, and with long points, of which the extreme acuteness was proverbial among the old Hindus. Every law-book, and almost every poem, in Sanferit contains frequent allufions to the holiness of this plant; and, in the fourth Véda, we have the following address to it at the clofe of a terrible incantation: Thee, O Darbha, the learned pro ⚫ claim a divinity not fubject to age or death; thee they call the ' armour of INDRA, the preferver of regions, the destroyer of enemies; a gem that gives increase to the field. At the time, when the ocean 'refounded, when the clouds murmured and lightnings flashed, then was Darbha produced, pure as a drop of fine gold.' Some of the leaves taper to a most acute, evanefcent point; whence the Pandits often say of a very sharp-minded man, that his intellects are acute as the point of a Cus'a leaf. 13. BANDHU'CA: SYN. Ractaca, Bandhujivaca. LINN. Scarlet IXORA. CAL. Perianth four-parted, permanent; divifions, coloured, erect, acute. COR. One-petaled, funnel-form. Tube, cylindrick, very long, slender, somewhat curved. Border four-parted; divifions, egged, acute, deflected. STAM. Filaments four, above the throat very short, incurved. Anthers oblong, depreffed. PIST. Germ roundish, oblate beneath. Style, threadform, long as the tube. Stigma two-cleft, just above the throat; divifions, externally curved. PER. SEEDS: FLOWERS bright crimson-scarlet, umbel-fascicled. Leaves oval, crosspaired, half-stem-clasping, pointed; pale below, dark green above, leathery, clothing the whole plant. Stipules between the oppofite leaves, erect, linear. Stem ruffet, channelled. The Bandúca-flower is often mentioned by the best Indian poets; but the Pandits are strangely divided in opinion concerning the plant, which the ancients knew by that name. RA'DHA'CA'NT brought me, as the famed Bandbúca, fome flowers of the Doubtful PAPAVER; and his younger brother RAMA'CA'NT produced on the following day the Scarlet IXORA, with a beautiful couplet in which it is named Bandhúca: foon after, SERVO'RU showed me a book, in which it is faid to have the vulgar name Dop'hariya, or Meridian; but by that Hindustáni name, the Mufelmans in fome districts mean the Scarlet PENTAPETES, and, in others, the Scarlet HIBISCUS, which the Hindus call Súryamani, or Gem of the Sun. The last-mentioned plant is the Siafmin of RHEEDE, which LINNAEUS, LINNEUS, through mere inadvertence, has confounded with the Scarlet Pentapetes, described in the fifty-fixth plate of the fame volume. I cannot refrain from adding, that no Indian god was ever named IXORA ; and that Is'wara, which is, indeed, a title of SIVA, would be a very improper appellation of a plant, which has already a claffical name. 14. CARNICA'RA: SYN. Drumótpala, Perivyádha. It is wonderful, that the Pandits of this province, both priests and phyficians, are unable to bring me the flower, which CA'LIDA'S A mentions by the name of Carnicára, and celebrates as a flame of the woods : the lovely Pavetta, which botanists have fufficiently described, is called by the Bengal peasants Cáncrà, which I should conclude to be a corruption of the Sanfcrit word, if a cominent on the Amaracófh, had not exhibited, the vulgar name Cat'ha-champá; which raises a doubt, and almost inclines me to believe, that the Carnicára is one of the many flowers, which the natives of this country improperly called wild Champacs. 15. MA'SHANDARI': VULG. Mafandarí in Bengal; and Baftra in Hinduftán. LINN. American CALLICARPUS; yet a native of Java? CAL. Perianth one-leaved, four-parted; Divifions pointed, erect. COR. One-petaled, funnel-form; border four-cleft. STAM. Filaments four, thread-form, coloured, longer than the corol. Anthers roundish, incumbent. PIST. Germ above, egged. Style thread-form, coloured, longer than the ftamens. Stigma thickih, gaping. PER. L PER. FLOWERS minute, bright lilack, or light purple, extremely beautiful. Panicles axillary one to each leaf, two-forked, very fhort in comparifon of the leaves, downy. Bracts awled, oppofite, placed at each fork of the panicle. Leaves oppofite, petioled, very long, egged, veined, pointed, obtufely-notched, bright green and foft above, pale and downy beneath. Branches and petiols hoary with down. Shrub, with flexible branches; growing wild near Calcutta: its root has medicinal virtues, and cures, they fay, a cutaneous diforder called máfha, whence the plant has its name. Though the leaves be not fawed, yet I dare not pronounce the fpecies to be new. See a note on the Hoary CALLICARPUS, 5 RETZ. Fafcic. p. 1. n. 19. 16. SRINGA'TA: I can add nothing to what has been written on this remarkable waterplant; but as the ancient Hindus were so fond of its nut (from the horns of which, they gave a name to the plant itself), that they placed it among their lunar conftellations, it may certainly claim a place in a series of Indian vegetables. 17. CHANDANA: SYN. Gandhafára, Malayaja, Bhadras'rì. VULG. Chandan, Sandal, Sanders. LINN. True Santalum; more properly Sandalum. SEED large, globular, smooth. |