with a brown tinge in the axis-line. When mature, it is woody and solid ; sinuous and nodose near the stem, sending down into the soil many thick fibrillar Sometimes the root is 2ft. long. Leaves entire, alternate, slightly drooping, glabrous, undulate or wavy, elliptic, ovate, lanceolate or oblong-rotund ; ribs prominent on the ventral surface; margin of tender leaves distinctly red all round. Petioles very short, channelled, sometimes amplexicaul ; sometimes absent ; margins red. Stipules absent. Flowers odourless, in terminal or axillary spikes (racemes) l-2ft.
long. Rachis of the spike glabrous. Bracts 2, superior, lateral, 3, says Rheede, glabrous, foliaceous. Rheede's descripion seems to me to be more accurate (K. R. Kirtikar) ; the bracteoles are persistent Calyx sessile, inferior, gamosepalous, tubular, herbaceous, covered with stalked, sticky scarlet glands throughout its length, 5-10-ribbed ; upper half bright-red, often deep rose- coloured, lower half brown-red, with just a shade of green near
the insertion of the bracteole. If the pedicel is at all present, it is very short, oblong and deeply imbedded in the bracteoles. Corolla bright-red, often deep rose-coloured, hypercratiform, hypogynous tube long, slender, slightly angular, lobes 5, obovate or obcordate, usually the latter ; stamens 5, opposite the petals, free, very fine, and delicate, pale-rose-coloured, partly whitish, slightly arising above the " throat " of the Corolla-tube and looking purplish. Filaments filiform, linear, dilated at base and inserted at the base of the petals into the tops of 5 nectrial scales (Roxb.). Anthers oblong, introse ; anther-cells separated at base, opening by longitudinal slits. Pollen ovate. Ovary free, sessile, superior, 5-angular above, or 5-gibbous, as Boisseir terms it ; narrowed at apex. Style single, slender, whitish, with 5 small segments quite indiscernible and alternating with the stamens. Base of style hairy. The union of the segments is a diagnostic character of this plant. Stigmas 5, capillary, furnished on their inner surface with several lines of glands. Ovule 1. Fruit a membranous capsule, circumciss. Blume says the Dehiscence is valvate, others say that the Dehiscince is subvalvate. Seed cylindric or
oblong, rotund, with 5 longitudinal striae.
"Altogether resembling P. Zeylanica and perhaps only a cultivated variety of it " (C. B. Clarke).
