112 XCVIII, ACANTHACEE (CLARKE). [ Sclerochiton. 
obtuse; petiole } in. long. Heads 1} in. in diam., about 8-flowered, 
lax; pedicels 51, in. long, minutely pubescent; bract at base of the 
pedicel } in. long, ovate ; bracteoles (close to calyx) 4 in. long, elliptic 
acute. Posticous sepal exceeding ? in. in length, tip oblong 3, in. wide, 
obtuse, toothed ; 2 anticous sepals % in. long, lanceolate, acute, some- 
times with a lateral tooth; 2 interior. sepals nearly as the anticous. 
Corolla 1 in. long. Anthers broad-oblong, thinly hairy. 
Mozamb. Dist. British Central Africa; Nyasaland; Masuku Plateau, 6500- 
7000 ft., Whyte, 267! 
28. CROSSANDRA, Salisb.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. ii. 1094. 
Calyx 5-partite to the base; 2 anticous segments oblong, acute, 
l-nerved; posticous segments broader, 2-nerved, often 2-toothed; 
2 inmost segments lanceolate or linear. Corolla orange-yellow or 
light-red; tube long linear, much longer than the limb; limb of 5 
segments, imbricate in bud, turned to one side in the expanded flower. 
Stamens 4, subsimilar; filaments short, glabrous; anthers 1-celled, 
included in the linear corolla-tube, oblong, muticous; pollen oblong, 
usually narrow-oblong, square-headed, with 3 (often very slender) 
longitudinal chinks. Ovary oblong, with 2 ovules in each cell, 
glabrous or scarcely hispid at the tip; style glabrous or thinly hairy; 
stigma dilated, obscurely 2-fid, more or less trumpet-mouthed. Capsule 
oblong-ellipsoid, usually 4-seeded; seeds covered with tufts of hairs or 
adpressed scales fringed with tufts of hairs each spirally thickened 
within and slightly hygroscopic.—Shrubs. Leaves entire. Flowers in 
strobilate, often long-peduncled spikes; bract large, ovate, pubescent 
or papery, subglabrous; bracteoles linear or lanceolate, as long as the 
calyx (except in C’. pungens). 
Species 14, African or Mascarene, 1 of these extending to India. 
In many genera of Acanthacee, the two anticous calyx-segments are more or leas 
connate, often nearly or quite to the tip, forming a 2-nerved, sometimes apparently 
simple segment. In Crossandra, in the posticous segment, the central nerve 
has died quite away, occasionally a trace near the base remains, while 2 lateral nerves 
are developed so that the tip of the segment is 2-spined or more or less 2-lobed ; it 
state might be compared to that of the palea in grasses ; and it so extraordinarily 
simulates the much more common connate 2-sepalous anticous calyx-segment that it is 
not strange that Bentham (in Gen. Pl.) and Lindau in Engler’s Pflanzenfam. have 
taken it for the anticous calyx-segment. 
* Bract herbaceous, ovate, short-acuminate, hairy at least 
on the margin. 
Bract with several subulate teeth on the margin, 
Spikes peduncled. 
Stem leafy ; corolla orange, tube 2 in. long . 1. C. Greenstockii. 
Stem short 3 corolla yellow, tube 14 in, long . 2. C. flava. 
Spikes sessile. Leaves all close to the spike . . 8. C, stenostachya. 
Bract with a mucronate or spinous tip, but no long 
teeth on the margin. 
Spike nearly glabrous; bract 3-1-toothed 
. ° . } t ta, 
Spike hairy, 4. C. tridenta 
