49. CAHLA'RA:

SYN. Saugandhica, or Sweet-fcented.

VULG. Sundhi-hálá, or Sundhí-hálá-náli.

LINN. NYMPHEA Lotos.

Calyx as in the genus.

COR. Petals fifteen, lanced, rather pointed and keeled; the exterior feries green without, imitating an interior calyx.

STAM. Filaments more than forty; below flat, broad; above narrow, channelled within, smooth without; the outer feries erect, the inner somewhat converging. Anthers awled, erect; fome coloured like the petals.

PIST. Germ large, orbicular, flat at the top; with many (often seventeen) furrows externally, between which arife as many proceffes, converging toward the ftigma: the disk, marked with as many furrowed rays from the center, uniting on the margin with the converging proceffes. Stigma roundish, rather compreffed, feffile in the center of the disk, permanent.

PER. Berry, in the form of the germ expanded, with fixteen or seventeen cells.

SEEDS very numerous, minute, roundish. Flowers beautifully azure; when full blown, more diluted; lefs fragrant than the red or rosecoloured, but with a delicate scent. Leaves radical, very large, fubtargeted, hearted, deeply fcollop-toothed. On one fide dark purple, reticulated, or the other, dull green, fmooth. Petiols very smooth and long, tubular. The feeds are eaten, as well as the bulb of the root, called Sálúca; a name applied by RHEEDE to the whole plant, though the word Camala, which belongs to another Linnaan fpecies

* According to the facred Grammar, this word was written Cahlhára, and pronounced as Callara, would be in ancient British. When the flowers are red, the plant is called Hallaca and Racs Sandbaca.

of Nymphæa, be clearly engraved on his plate in Nágarì letters. There is a variety of this fpecies with leaves purplish on both sides; flowers dark crimson, calycine petals richly coloured internally, and anthers flat, furrowed, adhering to the top of the filaments: the petals are more than fifteen, lefs pointed and broader than the blue, with little odour.

The true Lotos of Egypt is the NYMPHŒA Nílúfer, which in Sanferit has the following names or epithets: PADMA, Nalina, Aravinda, Mahotpala, Camala, Cuféfhaya, Sahafrapatra, Sárafa, Pancéruha, Támarafa, Sarasíruka, Rájiva, Vis'aprafúna, Pushcara, Ambhóruha, Satapatra. The new blown flowers of the rofe-coloured PADMA, have a most agreeable fragrance; the white and yellow have lefs odour: the blue, I am told, is a native of Cafhmir and Perfia.

50. СНАМРАСА:

SYN. Chámpéya, Hémapushpaca.
VULG. Champac, Champá.
LINN. Michelia.

The delineation of this charming and celebrated plant, exhibited by VAN RHEEDE, is very correct, but rather on too large a fcale: no material change can be made it its natural character given by LINNÆUS; but, from an attentive examination of his two species, I fufpect them to be varieties only, and am certain, that his trivial names are merely different ways of expreffing the fame word. The strong aromatick scent of the gold-coloured Champac is thought offenfive to the bees, who are never seen on its bloffoms; but their elegant appearance on the black hair of the Indian woman is mentioned by RUMPHIUS; and both facts have supplied the Sanferit poets with elegant allufions. Of the wild Champac, the leaves are lanced or lance-oblong; the three leaflets

of

the calyx, green, oval, concave; the petals conftantly fix, creamcoloured, fleshy, concave, with little fcent; the three exterior, inverseegged; the three interior, more narrow, fhorter pointed, converging; the anthers clubbed, closely fet round the base of the imbricated germs, and with them forming a cone; the ftigmas, minute, jagged.

Both Mr. MARSDEN and RUMPHIUS mention the blue Champac as a rare flower highly prized in Sumatra and Java; but I fhould have suspected, that they meant the KÆMPFERIA Bhuchampac, if the Dutch naturalist had not afferted, that the plant, which bore it, was a tree refembling the Champaca with yellow bloffoms: he probably, never had seen it; and the Bráhmens of this province insist, that it flowers only in paradife.

51. DEVADA'RU:

SYN. Sacrapádapa, Páribhadraca; Bhadradáru, Dubcilima, Pítadáru,
Dáru, Púticáfht' ha.

It is wonderful, that RHEEDE has exhibited no delineation of a fhrub so highly venerated by the Hindus, who have given one of its names to a facred grove of their Parnaffus on the banks of the Yamunà: he describes it, however, in general terms, as resembling another of his Tolaffis

(for

も

(for fo he writes the word, though Tulasì be clearly intended by his Nágarì letters); and adds, that it is the only Species reputed holy, and dedicated to the God VISHNU. I should, consequently, have taken it for the Holy OCYNUM of LINNÆUS, if its odour, of which that species is said to be nearly deftitute, had not been very aromatick and grateful; but it is more probably a variety of that species, than of the Small-flowered, which resembles it a little in fragrance: whatever be its Linnæan appellation, if it have any, the following are the only remarks that I have yet had leisure to make on it.

STEM one or two feet high, mostly incurved above; knotty, and rough, below. Branchlets cross-armed, channelled. Leaves oppofite, rather small, egged, pointed, acutely fawed; purple veined, beneath; dark, above. Petiols dark purple, downy. Racemes terminal; Flowers verticilled threefold, or fivefold, cross-armed; verticils from seven to fourteen; Peduncles dark purple, channelled, villous; bracts sesfile, roundish, concave, reflected. Calyx, with its upper lip orbicular, deeply concave externally. Corol bluish purple. The whole plant has a dusky purplish hue approaching to black, and thence perhaps, like the large black bee of this country, it is held facred to CRISHNA ; though a fable, perfectly Ovidian, be told in the Puránas concerning the metamorphofis of the nymph TULASI, who was beloved by the paftoral God, into the fhrub, which has fince borne her name: it may not be improper to add, that the White OCYMUM is in Sanfcrit called Arjaca.

53. PA'TALI:

SYN. Pátala, Amóghà, Cáchaft hálí, P'haléruhà, Crishnavrintà, Cu

véráchì. Some read Móghá and Cálást' bálí.

VULG. Páralá, Pàrali, Párul.

LINN. BIGNONIA. Chelonoides?

CAL.

CAL. Perianth one-leaved, belled, villous, withering, obfcurely fiveangled from the points of the divifions, five-parted; divifions, roundish, pointed, the two lowest most distant.

COR. One-petaled, belled. Tube very short; throat, oblong-belled, gibbous. Border five-parted; the two higher divifions reflected, each minutely toothed; convex externally; the three lower divifions, above, expanded; below, ribbed, furrowed, very villous. Palate nearly clofing the throat. Nectary, a prominent rim, furrounding germ, obfcurely five-parted.

the

STAM. Filaments four or five, incurved, inferted below the upper divifion of the border, fhorter than the corol, with the rudiment of a fifth or fixth, between two shorter than the reft. Anthers, two-cleft,

incumbent at obtufe angles.

PIST. Germ oblong-conical. Style thread-form, as long as the ftamens.
Stigma headed with two folds often closed by viscidity.
PER. Capfule one-celled, two-valved, twelve inches long at a medium,
and one inch thick; rounded, four-fided, pointed, incurved, rather
contorted, diminishing at both ends, dotted with ashy specks, here
and there flightly prominent, ftriated; two stripes broader, very dark,
at right angles with the valves.

REC. A feries of hard, broadish, woody rings, closely ftrung on two
wiry central threads.

SEEDS numerous, forty-eight on an average, three-angled, inserted by one angle in cavities between the rings of the receptacle, into which they are closely preffed by parallel ribs in the four fides of the capfule; winged on the two other angles with long fubpellucid membranes, imbricated along the fides of the receptacle.

Tree rather large. Stem fcabrous.

Branchlets cross-armed, yellowish green, fpeckled with small white lines.
Leaves feathered with an odd one; two or three paired, petioled.
Leaflets oppofite, egged, pointed, most entire, downy on both fides,

VOL. II.

veined;