Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: teruate, ovate, broad, entire, glabrous, palmately nerved. Petiole long with 2 persistent lateral stipules. Flowers dioecious, the male ones in panicles, the female solitary. Calyx gamosepalous, dividing unequally when the flower opens. The male flower has a corolla of 5—7 petals, violet-colored, concave, half oval, with pubescent borders; at its base a flat scale. Stamens free, numerous, thick filaments, anthers bilocular. In the female flower the perianth is the same as in the former, the stamens sterile. Ovary unilocular, with 2—4 parietal placentte with many ovules. Fruit as large as a man's head, with thin woody pericarp and many seeds embedded within its pulp. PORTULACACE-ffi. Purslane Family. Portulaca oleracea, L. Nom. Vulg.— Verdolagas, Sp.; Olasiman, Kolasiman, Tag.; Purslane, Eng. Uses.—The entire plant is edible, in the form of a salad or as a condiment with meat or fish. The leaves are succulent and acid, and the juice expressed from them is used as an eyewash to remove corneal opacities; it is also used in superficial erysipelas and other skin affections. The bruised leaves are used as a poultice for abscesses, contusions and on the temples for headache. The juice is given internally to check haemoptysis and in diseases of the lungs and bladder; the seeds also are used in these complaints. Botanical Description.—A plant with prostrate stem. Leaves fleshy, wedge-shaped. Flowers small, sessile, terminal, pale yellow. Calyx of 2 large teeth, deciduous. Corolla, 4—5 petals with a notch at the end. Stamens 9—14. Style of equal length with the stamens. Stigma in 4—6 divisions. The seed vessel, which dehisces horizontally, contains many small, heart-shaped seeds. Habitat.—It grows in all parts of the islands. GARCINIA JIANGOSTANA 35 GUTTIFERJE. G...