Habitat: — Sea-shores of India, from Sind to Ceylon, and from Burma to Malacca.
A large shruby plant with thin loose bark ; stem and branches stout. Leaves 3-5in., alternate, entire or rarely obscurely crenate, silky or glabrescent, tufted in the axils, petioled, obovate-oblong, obtuse, herbaceous. Flowers white, tinged with purple. Cymes axillary, much shorter than the leaves. Bracts small. Calyx-lobes ⅛-¼in. linear-lanceolate, obtuse and enlarged in fruit. Corolla-tube ¾in., oblique split to the base behind, narrow pubescent ; lobes ¼-⅓in., lanceolate, anthers free. Indusium of the stigma ciliate ; ovary 2-1 celled, with 2 erect ovules. Drupe ⅓-½in., subspherical, very succulent ; endocarp long.
Use : — The juice of the berries is instilled by the Amboyans into the eyes to clear off opacities and take away dimness of vision (Rumplins).
N. 0. CAMPANULACEÆ.
702. Lobelia nicotianœfolia, Heyne., h.b.f.i., iii, 427 ; Roxb. 170.
Vern. : — Deonal, Bokenal, Dhaval (Mar.).
Habitat: — Malabar; on the Ghauts, from Bombay to Travancore.
Tall herbs ; stems usually much branched upwards, 5-12ft., erect, somewhat pubescent or glabrate ; below an inch and a half or more in diameter, and almost solid ; the upper portion is a hollow tube ending in a crowded head of flower spikes which are about a foot in length. Leaves mostly radical, resemble those of the tobacco ; narrowly obovate-lanceolate, lower often 12 by 2in., upper gradually smaller, subsessile, serrulate herbaceous, glabrous or nearly so above, pilose or glabrous beneath. Inflorescence compound ; racemes dense, more or less pubescent ; peduncles ½-1in. and upwards. Flowers large and white. Calyx-tube glabrous or pubescent ; teeth ½in.; linear, glanddenticulate. Corolla ¾-1¼in., glabrous or pubescent. Anthers glabrous, on the back rarely a little hairy. Capsule ⅓ diam., subglobose, two-celled, each cell containing a fleshy placeuta.
