426 MR. G, BENTHAM ON COMPOSITE. 
limited areas. The Relhaniez (fourteen genera and near one hun- 
dred species)are exclusively South African, or sparingly represented 
in the Mascarene Islands. They are in many respects so closely 
connected with the Helichrysee of the same region as to make it 
sometimes difficult to determine to which subtribe a genus should 
belong. Thus JMefalasia and Lachnospermum, having no female 
florets in any of the species known, might equally well belong to 
either subtribe, but that they have the peculiar foliage of Rel- 
haniez, concave or tomentose on the upper instead of the under 
side, unknown in any other subtribe of Inuloidex, excepting 
perhaps Phenocoma, another genus, like Metalasia, rendered am- 
biguous by the absence of female florets, but which, notwith- 
standing its Relhanieous foliage, seems, in involucre and other 
characters, to have more affinity with Helichrysee. 
Some Relhaniew have the one- or few-flowered aggregate 
capitula of the Australian Angianthes, but accompanied by a 
strictly South-African, not Australian, combination of habit, 
foliage, and other characters, showing the affinity between the 
two subtribes to be distant. 
The individual genera of Relhaniex, distinguished chiefly by the 
aggregate or separate flower-heads, or by the various pappus- 
forms, afford nothing special to remark upon, as far as hitherto 
observed, in respect of geographical distribution, all being confined 
to the same limited area. 
7. ATHRIXIEX. This subtribe, although still chiefly South- 
African, is not so local in geographical distribution, and more 
varied in structure than the Relhanieew. The Athrixiee are at once 
distinguished from the Relhaniee by the foliage, from Euinulex 
by the style, and generally from both in habit. The genera, 
however, require separate consideration; for they are not so 
blended into each other as most of those of the preceding 
subtribes. 
Athrixia itself, with fourteen species, is represented in South 
Africa, Madagascar, Abyssinia, and Australia, although in no case 
by identieal species in any two of these regions. Four of the five 
Australian species form a local section distinct from the African 
ones, and which has indeed been raised into two genera, but 
properly reduced to Athrizia by Asa Gray. The fifth Australian 
species, however (4. aculeata, Steetz, or Asteridia, Lindl.), is 
nearer in structure and habit to the typical 4. capensis than to 
any of its own fellow-citizens ; and the single Madagascar species 
