Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/67

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A NOTE ON CERTAIN SPECIES OF POLYGALA.
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1/8 inch long and 1/16 inch broad. Seeds are narrow, strophiolate and without any appendages.

This plant matches very well with Wight's type specimen No. 131 in the Madras Herbarium named Polygala Vahliana DC. It is quite distinct from Polygala crioptera, DC. 1. 326. and differs from it in several points. Polygala Vahliana, DC. is a prostrate plant with oblong hairy leaves, and it has villous sepal wings and pinkish petals, whereas Polygala crioptera DC. is an erect one with stiff branches and almost glabrous linear leaves and has quite glabrous wing sepals and yellow petals. Specimens of this plant were sent to Mr. Gamble [1] and he now considers this to be a distinct variety of Polygala crioptera. The differences are, we think, quite sufficient to consider this as a distinct species, as is done by Wight and Arnott in their Prodromus.

2. Polygala sp:—This is an annual herb. Stems and branches are mostly procumbent and densely hairy. Leaves are either ovateoblong, obtuse rarely retuse, or oblong-lanceolate to oblong-linear, acute, mucronulate, shortly petioled and with soft hairs scattered on both the surfaces. Racemes are shorter than the leaves, lateral, densely softly hairy with a few to many short pedicelled flowers closely set. The larger inner sepals are greenish with membranous margins, thinly hairy all over, obliquely ovate lanceolate, acuminate, about as long as or a little longer than the capsule. Petals are rose-purple. Capsule is oblong, longer than broad, about ⅛ inch or a little longer, with unequal lobes, oblique and emarginate at the apex, margin ciliate. Seeds are oblong, with a three-fid strophiole without any wings or rarely two arms with very short obscure wings.

  1. Who is working on the new official "Flora of the Madras Presidency."