NOTES ON BESTIACE.E. 579 



Ad Prom. Bon. Spei, ad montem tabularem, Burchell, 574 J , 

 et ad Valley Bivier's Poort, 6999 6 , ad montes Niewekloof, 8067 

 c? ; specimina olim a me ad Elegiam propinquam relata. Dr. 

 Thorn, 904 S ; Witteklip, MacOwan 2050, Drege 1617. 



The male plant corresponds very closely with Lamarck's figure 

 of his Hestio racemosus. The shape of the perianth-segments is 

 different in the male and female plants respectively, as it fre- 

 quently is in this genus and in Elegia. Burchell's specimens 

 are all males, but they correspond so closely with the figure of 

 Lamarck, above cited, that although I have not seen an authentic 

 specimen of Lamarck's, I have little hesitation in combining the 

 two. The broadly lanceolate open spathes, with a rather wide 

 whitish edge, are characteristic of this species. The 3-lobed, 

 3-celled ovary of Lamarck's plant indicates it to belong to the 

 genus Dovea as now constituted. 



Elegia. 



This genus is well characterized by its one-celled, indehiscent, 

 usually 3-sided fruit, but in some species it is more or less terete 

 or two-edged. The general habit is tolerably uniform throughout. 

 The leaf-sheaths are usually deciduous, rarely persistent. There 

 is considerable variation in the inflorescence, which, though always 

 essentially cymose, varies from a close spike to a much-branched 

 loose panicle. In the former case the bract and the " spathella " 

 are one and the same ; but when the inflorescence becomes much 

 branched, the " spathella" occupies the position at the base of 

 the ultimate pedicels, and the shortly stipitate flower is. in such 

 cases, usually, but not universally, destitute of bract proper. 

 When present it is of course of a different " order " from the 

 spathella. In some of the species now described, the ovary, 

 although uniformly 1-locular, is seen to be more or less 3-lobed, 

 the lobes even being marked by wing-like processes, which appear 

 to thicken as the fruit ripens, and then present the appearance 

 of thickened ribs or costae projecting from the prominent angles, 

 of the fruit. 



E. glauca, Mast., sp. n. ; culmo solido compresso ; vaginis 

 culmeis persistentibus ; inflorescentia mascula brevi arete com- 

 pacta spatbis oblongis persistentibus, inflorescentia ipsa baud 

 longioribus ; spathellis longe acuminatis ; periauthii segmentis 

 acumiuatis ; inflorescentia feminea oblonga ; perianthii segments 



