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in cookery. VAN RHEEDE calls it Ambadò or Ambalam; and, as he describes it with five or fix ftyles, it is wonderful, that HILL should have fuppofed it a Chryfobalanus.

47. HE'MASA'GARA; or the Sea of Gold. VULG. Himfágar.

LINN. Jagged-leaved COTYLEDON.

CAL. Perianth four-cleft; divifions acute.

COR. One-petaled: Tube, four-angled, larger at the base; border fourparted; divifions, egged, acute. Nectary, one minute concave scale at the base of each germ.

STAM. Filaments eight, adhering to the tube; four, just emerging from its mouth; four, alternate, shorter. Anthers erect, fmall, furrowed.

PIST. Germs four, conical.

Styles, one from each germ, awled,

longer than the filaments. Stigmas fimple.

PER. Capfules four, oblong, pointed, bellied, one-valved, bursting longitudinally within.

SEEDS numerous, minute.

Panicles terminal. Flowers of the brightest gold-colour. Leaves thick, fucculent, jagged, dull fea-green. Stem jointed, bending, in part

recumbent. This plant flowers for many months annually in Bengal: in one bloffom out of many, the numbers were ten and five; but the filaments alternately long and short.

48. MADHU'CA:

SYN. Gurapushpa, Madhudruma, Vánapraft'ha, Madhufht' hila, Madhu. VULG. Maüyála, Mahuyá, Mabwá.

LINN. Longleaved BASSIA.

49. CAHLA'RA:

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 series 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 processes. Stigma roundish, rather compressed, seffile 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; less fragrant than the red or rosecoloured, but with a delicate scent. Leaves radical, very large, subtargeted, hearted, deeply scollop-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 Linnæan species

* 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 Resta Jandbaca.

of

of Nymphea, be clearly engraved on his plate in Nagarì letters. There is a variety of this fpecies with leaves purplish on both fides; flowers dark crimfon, 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 NYMPHA Nilüfer, which in Sanferit has the following names.or epithets: PADMA, Nalina, Aravinda, Mahotpala, Camala, Cuféshaya, Sahafrapatra, Sárafa, Pancéruha, Támarafa, Sarasíruha, Rájica, Vis'aprafuna, 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 Cashmir and Perfia.

50. CHAMPACA:

SYN. Champéya, 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 scale: no material change can be made it its natural character given by LINNAUS; 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 Sanfcrit poets with elegant allusions. 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 scent; the three exterior, inverseegged; the three interior, more narrow, fhorter pointed, converging ; the anthers clubbed, closely set 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 should 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 infist, that it flowers only in paradife.

51. DE'VADA'RU:

SYN.

Sacrapádapa, Páribhadraca; Bhadradáru, Dubcilima, Pítadáru,

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SYN. Tulasi, Cat" binjara, Cut" béraca, Vrindá.

VULG.

Tulosì, Tulfi.

LINN. Holy OCYNUM?

The Natural Character as in LINNÆUS.

See 10 H. M. p. 173.

It is wonderful, that RHEEDE has exhibited no delineation of a shrub 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

(for fo he writes the word, though Tulasì be clearly intended by his Nágarì letters); and adds, that it is the only fpecies reputed holy, and dedicated to the God VISHNU. I fhould, confequently, have taken it for the Holy OCYNUM of LINNAEUS, if its odour, of which that fpecies is faid to be nearly deftitute, had not been very aromatick and grateful; but it is more probably a variety of that fpecies, 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 leifure to make on it.

STEM one or two feet high, mostly incurved above; knotty, and rough, below. Branchlets cross-armed, channelled. Leaves opposite, rather fmall, 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 feffile, 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 pastoral God, into the shrub, 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' bál, P'haléruhà, Crishnavrintà, Cuvéráchì. Some read Móghá and Cáláft' báli.

VULG. Páralá, Pàrali, Párul.

LINN, BIGNONIA. Chelonoides?

CAL.

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