PIST. Germ roundish, villous. Style thread-form, much longer than the ftamens. Stigma obtuse-headed. PER. Berry roundish, dotted above, hoary, divided into cells by a fleshy receptacle with two, or three, wings. SEEDS very many, roundish, compreffed, neftling. LEAVES alternate, egg-oblong, pointed, rather wavy on the margin, delicately fringed with down; darker and very foft above, paler below with protuberant veins, downy on both fides, mostly decurrent on the long hoary petiols. STEM fhrubby, fcabrous with tubercles, unarmed. Flowers umbel-fascicled. Corols white. Anthers, yellow. Peduncles and pedicels hoary with deciduous froft. This plant is believed to contain a quantity of lavana, or falt, which makes it useful as a manure; but the fingle word Bhantáca, vulgarly Bhánt, means the Clerodendrum, which (without being unfortunate) beautifies our Indian fields and hedges with its very black berry in the centre of a bright-red, expanding, permanent calyx. The charming little bird Chatráca, commonly called Chattárya or Tuntuni, forms its wonderful neft with a leaf of this downy Solanum, which it fews with the filk-cotton of the Seven-leaved BOMBAX, by the help of its delicate, but sharp, bill: that lovely bird is well known by the Linnean appellation of MOTACILLA Sartoria, properly Sartrix, but the figures of it, that have been published, give no idea of its engaging and exquifite beauty. 23. SAMUDRACA: SYN. Dhóla-famudra. VULG. Dhol-famudr. LINN. Aquilicia; but a new fpecies. CAL. Perianth one-leaved, funnel-shaped, five-toothed, short, the teeth clofely preffing the corol; permanent. COR. COR. Petals five, egg-oblong, feffile, greenish; acute, curved inwards with a small angled concave appendage. Nectary tubular, fleshy, five-parted, yellowish; divifions, egg-oblong, doubled, compreffed like minute bags with inverted mouths; enclosing the germ. STAM. Filaments five, fmooth and convex externally, bent into the top of the nectary, between the divifions or scales, and compreffing it into a globular figure. Anthers arrowed; the points hidden within the nectary, furrounding the ftigma; the barbs without, in the form of a star. PIST. Germ roundifh. Style cylindrick. Stigma obtuse. PER. Berry roundish, flattened, naveled, longitudinally furrowed, moftly five-celled. SEEDS folitary, three-fided, externally convex. Cymes moftly threeparted. Stem deeply channeled, jointed, two-forked. Peduncles alfo jointed and channeled. Fructification bursting laterally, where the stem fends forth a petiol. Berries black, watry. Leaves alternate, except one terminal pair; hearted, pointed, toothed; twelve or fourteen of the teeth fhooting into lobes; above, dark green; below, pale, ribbed with proceffes from the petiol, and reticulated with protuberant veins; the full-grown leaves, above two feet long from the apex, and nearly as broad toward the bafe; many of them rather targetted this new fpecies may be called large-leaved, or AQUILICIA Samudraca. The fpecies described by the younger BURMAN, under the name of the Indian STAPHYLEA, is not uncommon at Crishna-nagar; where the peasants call it Cácajanghá, or Crow's foot: if they are correct, we have erroneously fuppofed the Cóing of the modern Bengalefe to be the Cácángi of the ancient Hindus. It must not be omitted, that the ftem of the Aquilicia Sambucina is also channeled, but that its fructification differs in many respects from the descriptions of BURMAN and LINNAUS; though there can be no doubt as to the identity of the genus. 24. SO'MA 24. SO'MARA'JI: SYN. Avalguja, Suballi, Sómaballicá, Cálaméfhì, Crishnáphalá, Vácuchi, Vágujì, Pútip' halli. VULG. Sómráj, Bacuchi. LINN. Fetid PODERIA. The character as in LINNEUS, with few variations. Calyx incurved. Corol very fhaggy within. Style two-cleft, pubefcent; divisions contorted. Stem climbing, fmooth. Leaves oppofite, long-petioled; the lower ones oblong, hearted; the higher, egg-oblong; veined, with a wavy margin. Panicles axillary (except the highest), crossarmed. Flowers beautiful to the fight, crimson, with milkwhite edges, resembling the Dianthus vulgarly called Sweet William, but resembling it only in form and colours; almost scentless to those, who are very near it, but diffufing to a distance a rank odour of carrion. All the peasants at Crishna-nagar called this plant Somráj; but my own servants, and a family of Bráhmens from Tribéni, gave that name to a very different plant, of the nineteenth clafs, which I took, on a curfory inspection, for a Prenanthes. 25. SYA'MA': SYN. Gópí, Sárivá, Anantà, Utpalafárivà, Gópá, Gopálicà, Gópavallì. VULG. Syámá-latá. RHEEDE in Malabar letters, Puppál-valli. CAL. Perianth, one-leaved, five-toothed, erect, minute, permanent. COR. One-petaled, falver-form. Tube, itfelf cylindrick, but protuberant in the middle with the and anthers; throat germ very villous. Border five-parted; divifions very long, lance-linear, spirally contorted, fringed, closed, concealing the fructification. STAM. Filaments, if any, very short. Anthers, five, awled, erect, con verging at the top. PIST. Germ above, pedicelled, fpheroidal, girt with a nectareous ring. Style threadform, rather awled. Stigma fimple. PER. Capfule one-celled; one-seeded, roundish, hifpid. SEED oval, very minute, gloffy. Flowers raceme-panicled, greenish-white, very small, fcented like those of the hawthorn, but far fweeter; and thence the Portuguese called them honey-flowers. Peduncles axillary, ruffet; pedicels many-flowered. Branchlets milky. Leaves oppofite, lance-oval, pointed at both ends, most entire veined; above dark green; below, pale. Stipules linear, axillary, adhering. Stem climbing, round, of a ruffet hue, rimmed at the infertion of the fhort petiols. his The ripe fruit of this elegant climber, which CA'LIDA'S mentions in poem of the Seasons, has been seen by me only in a very dry state; but it seemed, that the hifpid appearance of the capfules, or berries, which in a microscope looked exactly like the burrs in VAN RHEEDE'S engraving, was caused by the hardened calyxes and fringe of the permanent corols: the feeds in each burr were numerous and like black shining fand; for no fingle pericarp could be difengaged from it, and it is defcribed as one-feeded merely from an inspection of the diffected germ. Before I had seen the fruit, I thought the Syama very nearly connected with the Shrubby APOCYNUM, which it resembles in the leaves, and in parts of the corol. Five of the SANSCRIT names are ftrung together, by the author of the Amaracóf, in the following verfe; Gópi s'yámá s arivá fyádanantótpala farivá: and his commentator obferves, that the last name was given to the Sárivá from the resemblance of its flowers to thofe of the Utpala, which I thence conclude to be a Menianthes; efpecially as it is always de fcribed fcribed among the Indian water-plants. The other fynonymous words are taken from VA'CHASPATI. 26. A'VIGNA, or Avinga: SYN. Crishnapácap' hala, Sushénas, Caramardaca. VULG. Caróndà or Caraundà in two dictionaries; in one, Pâniamalà. LINN. CARISSA Carandas. CAL. Perianth five-cleft, acute, very fmall, coloured, perfiftent. STAM. Filaments five, extremely short. Anthers, oblong, erect. PER. Berry, elliptoïdal, two-celled. SEEDS at least seven, oval, compreffed, margined. Flowers milkwhite, jafmin-like. Fruit beautiful in form and colour, finely shaded with carmine and white; agreeably acid. Branches two-forked. Leaves oppofite, short-petioled, elliptick, obtuse, most entire, smooth; fome Small leaves roundish, inverfe-hearted. Thorns axillary, opposite, expanding; points, bright red. Peduncles twin, fubterminal, threeflowered; pedicels, equal. The whole plant, even the fruit, milky. We have both fpecies of Cariffa in this province; but they melt, scarce distinguishably, into each other. The Pandits have always brought me this elegant plant, as the Carcandhu mentioned by JAYADE'VA; but, judging only by the shape and taste of the fruit, they seem to confound it with the RHAMNUS Jujuba; and the confufion is increased by the obfcurity of the following paffage in their best vocabulary: Carcandhú, |