14 CY. ILLECEBRACEX (BAKER AND WRIGHT). { Cometes. 
1. C. abyssinica, 2. Br. in Wall. Pl. Asiat. Rar. t. 18. An erect 
perennial herb. Stems 3-1 ft. long, pubescent, many times dicho- 
tomously branched. Leaves sessile, spreading, lanceolate, opposite or 
verticillate, the lower 1-1} in. long. Clusters of flowers very numerous, 
terminal on the branchlets ; bracts at first comparatively small, finally 
overtopping the flowers, with many stramineous pungent divisions, so 
that the heads look like a prickly ball about 1 in. in diam. Perianth 
2 lin. long, green; segments oblong, tipped with a spreading mucro 
which becomes as long as the blade. Staminodes lingulate, longer than 
the fertile stamens—Engl. Hochgebirgsfl. Trop. Afr. 216. Saltia 
abyssinica, R. Br. in Salt, Abyss. App. iv. 74. 
Nile Land. Nubia: Soturba Mountains, Schweinfurth, 762! sea-coast to 
between 3000 and 4000 ft., Bent! Hor Tamanib, Lord! Sudan: Khor Ashat, 
Broun, 1213! Eritrea: near Mai Mafales, in Dembelas, Schweinfurth, 210! Mount 
Adaita, near Saati, Schweinfurth Sf Riva, 560! Mount Ketumbal, Ehrenberg! 
Abyssinia: Begemeder, Schimper, 97, Somaliland, Miss Edith Cole! Mrs. Lort 
Phillips ! 
Also in Arabia and the Comoro Islands, 
T have not seen the doubtful plant supposed to be allied to Cometes, collected by 
Major Serpa Pinto, 64, in South Central Africa, and described by Mr. Hiern in 
Trans. Linn. Soc. ser. 2, Bot. ii. 25. 
OrveR CVI. AMARANTACEZS. (By J. G. Baker and 
C. B. Clarke.) 
Flowers 2- (rarely 1-) sexual, many rudimentary or obsolete, 
monochlamydeous, chaffy or scarious. Perianth-segments united near 
the base, 5, much imbricated, in a few species 4 or 3 only. Stamens 
hypogynous, 5 (rarely 4—3), opposite the perianth-segments ; filaments 
united at the base into a scarious (sometimes very short) tube ; fila- 
ments linear to the base with processes (staminodes) on the tube 
alternating with them, sometimes the filaments wider at the base and 
uniting by an acute sinus into a longer cup-like tube without any 
staminodes; the processes resemble filaments or are oblong, often 
fimbriate, or small or nearly obsolete. Anther-cells 2 (in the last 
4 genera 1), oblong, with a longitudinal slit; pollen very small, 
globose. Ovary superior, 1-celled ; style short or long ; stigma capitate 
or shortly 2—2-fid; ovules on basal funicles, 1 only (except in the first 
3 genera). Fruit a membranous utricle (rarely a berry), irregularly 
breaking up or circumscissile. Seed globose, compressed or ellipsoid ; 
testa crustaceous, smooth or nearly so; embryo annular round copious 
endosperm.—Herbs or undershrubs, or (Sericostachys) large climbers. 
Leaves simple, entire, opposite or alternate. Flowers in spikes, heads 
or rarely racemes ; perfect flower often solitary, supported by 1 bract 
and 2 bracteoles; not rarely the solitary perfect flower is supported by 
2 (less often 1) rudimentary flowers (within the bract); in some 
genera 2-3 perfect flowers (with their extra “ bracteoles,” rudimentary 
flowers) are clustered inside one bract. Flowers small or minute. 
