ON AFRICAN PLANTS COLLECTED BY MAJOR SERPA PINTO. 13 
On Central-African ela Dua by Major Serpa Pinto. 
By Prof. Count FıcarMo and W. P. He, M.A., F.L.S. 
[Abstraet, read June 16, 1881.] 
Tur specimens herein discussed were collected by Major Serpa 
Pinto, during the month of August 1878, along the upper course of 
the river Ninda, an affluent of the Zambesi, on the west side of 
the high plateau. As regards the climate of this locality, the 
temperature is described as variable, the weather as very dry 
during seven or eight months of the year, and very wet during 
two or three months. The nature of the soil is metamorphic 
argillaceous schist; the latitude is 14? 46' S., the longitude 
20? 56' E., and the elevation 1143 metres above the ocean. 
The present little collection consists of seventy-two numbers, 
comprising sixty-five species in thirty-nine genera; more than 
a quarter of these species are new or not previously described 
and published, and at least one new genus appears amongst 
them. Some of the specimens are imperfect and have been difli- 
cult of final determination, especially the grasses and sedges ; the 
greater part have had their approximate position ascertained ; 
five specimens are hopelessly defective, and accordingly have 
been excluded from the examination. 
As in the case of the previously known species, the affinities of 
many of those of the present collection are not only with the flora 
of Huilla, in South Angola, but also, in several instances, with 
that of extratropical South Africa; only a few of the species are 
widely distributed in the tropies of this and other continents. 
This paper, with illustrations, will appear in full in the Society's 
* Transactions. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XIX. D 
