SOME AFRICAN LABIATE WITH ALTERNATE LEAVES. 271 
4. Icomum SUBACAULE, Burkill. (Pl. 6. figs. 5,6.) Herba 
spithamea velultra. Folia 6-7, ut videtur omnia radicalia, oblan- 
ceolato-oblonga, apice obtusa vel rotundata, basin versus longe 
sensim angustata, utrinque glabra, glandulis conspicue notata, 23- 
3 poll. longa, 8-10 lin. lata ; petiolus 9-12 lin. longus. Spice 5-6, 
simplices, longe pedunculate; pedunculus 4-53 poll. longus, 
bracteas lineari-lanceolatas alternatim 3-6 irregulariter gerens, 
pilis parvis sparse tectus; bractem steriles et ex flores subten- 
dentes 21-5 lin. long, glabrie, lineares; flores ad 50. Calye cam- 
panulatus, margine leviter sinuatus, aliquo modo bilabiatus, 
florens vix 1 lin. longus, basi rime indicationem demonstrans. 
Corolle extra pubescentis tubus ad 4 angustus, dein fortiter 
decurvatus ampliatus, 4 lin. longus ; labium superius 4-dentatum, 
dentibus rotundatis, 11 lin. longum ; labium inferius superiori 
longius, antheras includens. Staminum filamenta 1-13 lin. longa. 
Ovarii nucule apicibus obtuse; glandula linguiformis.— Plec- 
tranthus subacaulis, Baker in Kew Bulletin, 1895, p. 73. 
Hab. British Central Africa: Fwambo, near Lake Tanganyika, 
Rev. A. Carson, 33, 65. Flowering in January. 
Icomum, as remarked, is very near Eolanthus ; but although 
Eolanthus shows in many species characters leading to Lcomum, 
it is not diffienlt to define the boundary between the two. 
In £olanthus are two very closely allied species—A. ambustus, 
Oliver, and A. virgatus, Gürke ; so closely are they allied that one 
may only be a variety of the other, and Briquet * is certainly 
wrong in making for each of them a section, These two species 
approach Zeomum in the narrowness of their leaves and in their 
inflorescences. In the accompanying woodcut, fig. 5 represents 
a portion of the inflorescence of A. virgatus. As seen in it, the 
bracts are paired and opposed, but the flowers are solitary—one 
toeach node. There is then an alternation of the flowers, though 
not of the leaves. In addition, the branches of the lateral axes 
similarly alternate, though the leaves from which they arise are 
opposed ; while on the main axis, and now and then on the stronger 
lateral axes, the branches are opposed: so that one may trace a 
relationship between the vigour of the shoot and the possession 
* In Engler u. Prantl, Pflanzenfamilien, iv. 3a (Leipzig, 1897), p. 349, 
There is little except the size of the calyx by which the two species can be 
distinguished. 
