68 NEILGHERRY PLANTS.
the fruit elongated, somewhat curved like Caraway seed, when ripe marked with strong longitudinal ribs. It is well named ramosissimum, but of mucronatum, seems equally appropriate, and after comparing many specimens in all states and forms, I am now satisfied that one of these species must be reduced. B. virgatum seems also too nearly allied to these.
PASTINACA.
Margin of the calyx obsolete or minutely toothed. Petals roundish, entire, involute, the involute part broad and retuse. Fruit flat-compressed dorsally, surrounded by a dilated flattened margin. Merricarps with very slender ridges; the dorsal and 2 intermediate ones equidistant, the lateral contiguous to the dilated margin. Vittæ linear, scarcely shorter than the ridges, solitary in each interstice, 2 or more on the commissura. Carpophore bipartite. Seed flattened.-Herbaceous plants with a fusiform and often fleshy root. Leaves pinnated, the segments toothed, cut or lobed. Umbel compound. Involucre and involucel wanting or few-leav- ed. Flowers usually yellow.-W. and A. Prod. p. 372.
The well known Parsnip is a member of this genus. It is one of very old date being originally established by Tournifort. Since his time another genus has been formed and adopted by all Botanists, from Linnaus downwards, under the name of Heracleum, which, however, so far as I can discover, only differs in one point, the form of the petals. In this they are said to be roundish, entire, involute, the involute part round and retuse-while in the other they are said to be obovate, emarginate, with the point inflexed, the exterior ones often larger, spreading and bifid. To my mind these distinctions are too slight and indefinite to merit the importance assigned to them, at least as regards the Indian species. Under this impression, I have taken the liberty of uniting the Indian Heracleums with Pastinaca, and now publish the H. rigens of our Prodromus as a Pastinaca, by which two very artificial genera are united into one very natural one. Of the united genera there are several species on the Hills, all distinguished by their coarse foliage, and more or less compressed winged seed. So long as they were separate I always found it exceedingly difficult to tell one genus from the other, united they are generically easily recognized, though the species are not always quite so easily made out. They are all common during the rainy season, but disappear after having produced their seed. I republish from my Icones No. 1010, the following brief remarks regarding the union of the two genera. Being unable to discover any characters, by which these species and several others in my collection, may be distinguished generically from Pastinaca, the older genus of the two, I have been induced to refer them all to that genus in preference to retaining both it and Heracleum in the Indian Flora. It is my impression that there is no difference between the two genera, but I leave that for those who have better means of determining the point, to decide. So far as written characters go there is no difference, but there may be in habit, with which I am unacquainted. PASTINACA RIGENS (R. W. Heracleum rigens Wall D. C. W. and A.) stems slightly branched, furrowed, pubescent or hirsute: leaves ternate; divisions roundish, somewhat cordate at the base, toothed, upper side more or less scabrous with short hairs, under densely pubescent or tomentose, lateral ones on a short, terminal one on a long petiole, the latter bluntly 3-lobed or ternate; leaflets of the involucel ovate: petals equal: fruit ovate; vittæ on the back linear, much shorter than the fruit, the lateral ones in pairs, and close to the intermediate ridges: vittæ on the commissura 4, acute, unequal, the two outer the shorter.-W. and A. Prod. p. 373.
Frequent in pastures, flowering during the rainy autumnal months. The radical leaves are usually pinnated and lie on the ground. The specimen selected for representation is a small one, but as compared with many of the others, this is a small species.
XXXIII.-ARALIACEAE.
To this order the Ivy (Hedera Helex) belongs, and though on these hills we have nothing at all like the true Ivy to recall the fondly cherished associations of our native land; we have several species of the same genus and with them the aid of a name, though the things are most unlike, to make us think of the Ivy clad towers and trees of the old country. The Ivies of India are certainly most unlike those of Europe, but not more so than we find in
