248 ME. W. T. T. DYER ON THE GENUS HOODIA 



; 



On the Genus Hoodia, with a Diagnosis of a New Species. 



By W. T. Thiselton Dyi*r, M.A., B.Sc, F.L.S. 



[Read May 4, 1876.] 

 (Plate V.) 



The genus Hoodia has long been very imperfectly understood. 

 The original type was discovered by Colonel Gordon in Great 

 Namaqualand. He preserved no specimen, but made a drawing 

 which was afterwards published by Masson in his ' Stapeliae Novae,' 

 under the name of StapeliaGordoni ; in his description he errone- 

 ously ascribed to it a 10-fid corolla. Sweet, without giving any cha- 

 racters or apparently having seen any further materials than Mas- 

 son's figure, separated it under the name of Hoodia from Stapelia in 

 the second edition of his 'Hortus Britannicus' (1830). Don (1837) 

 also proposed to establish for it the genus Monothylaceum, based 

 on the " singular form of the corolla and the solitary follicles ;" 

 the latter is not a real character, as the follicles are probably 

 frequently geminate. Later still Sir W. Hooker established for 

 this and a new species the genus Scytanthus (1844) in the c Icones 

 Plantarum.' And there can be little doubt that this name ought 

 properly to stand, as it is the only one of the three which have 

 been given to the genus which is accompanied by an accurate 

 diagnosis. Decaisne, however, has set it aside in favour of Hoodia ; 

 and as this name has also been adopted by M r. Bentham in the 

 1 Genera Plantarum,' it has at any rate too much prescription in 



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its favour to make it 'desirable to disturb it. 



Sir ~W. Hooker's analysis was made from specimens, preserved 

 in spirit, of a second species, Hoodia Currori. He correctly 

 described the corona as duplex. Mr. Bentham, however, from an 

 examination of the dried specimens in the Kew Herbarium, has 

 been led to a different view of its structure, and regards the whole 

 corona as uniseriate. He describes it as consisting of a cup- 

 shaped body with 5 lobes incumbent upon the anthers, the wall 

 of the cup between the points of origin of the lobes being expanded 

 outwards into sinuses, 



A very careful examination, however, of some more favourable 

 materials than Mr. Bentham made use of has convinced me that 

 the corona is really biseriate. I found in the Kew Museum a 

 bottle labelled Scytanthus Gordoni, but which I have now no 

 doubt really contained the original specimen of Scytanthus Currori. 

 Unfortunately this had been preserved, at any rate for some time, 



