4irva. | CVI, AMARANTACEH (BAKER AND CLARKE). 41 
Illecebrum brachiatum, Linn. Mant. 213. Pseudanthus brachiata, Wight, 
Ie. t. 1776 partly. Nothoserua brachiata, Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. 
ili, 34; Hook, f. Fl. Brit. Ind. iv. 726; Schinz in Engl. & Prantl, 
Pflanzenfam. iii. 1A, 105, 109, in Engl. Pfl. Ost-Afr. C. 173; Hiern 
in Cat. Afr. Pl. Welw. i. 892. 
Upper Guinea. Senegambia, Heudelot, 239! Northern Nigeria: Kuka, 
near Lake Chad, Vogel, 7! 
North Central. Kanem: near Nguri, Chevalier, 10071! 
Nile Land. Kordofan, Kotschy, 112! 139! 372! Darfur, Purdy, 31! 
White Nile; Schweinfurth, 987! 
Lower Guinea. Angola: Loanda; Welwitsch, 6534! Gossweiler, 324! 
Also in the Mascarene Islands and India. 
This plant is so like Mrva lanata, Juss., that, as Hooker f. shows (in the Flora 
of Brit. Ind. 1.c.), it has been mistaken for, and mixed with, it by Wight. The 
flowers being minute, are usually much reduced in the perianth and staminal tube. 
8. SERICOCOMA, Fenzl (partly) ; Benth. et Hook. 
f. Gen, Pl: ni. 30, 
Perfect flower supported by 1-2 sterile flowers reduced to bracts or 
bracteoles, which are spinose, not uncinate; 2-3 (rarely 1) perfect 
flowers under each floral leaf, constituting partial inflorescences, which 
are arranged in dense compound spikes, and full of fine hairs. Perianth- 
segments oblong or elliptic. Stamens 5; filaments linear to the base, 
there united into a very short cup; between each pair is a staminode 
or process on the rim of the cup; anthers with 2 oblong cells. Ovary 
ovoid ; ovule one, suspended from a basal funicle; style about as long 
asthe ovary ; stigmasmall, Seed orbicular, flattened ; embryo annular. 
—Leaves all alternate. 
Species 6, in Tropical and South Africa. 
This genus is here separated, as by Schinz (in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iii. 
1A, 105), by its alternate leaves, which distinguish it from Cyphiocarpa (and from 
nearly all the less closely allied genera). 
Leaves oblong, elliptic. Branches pubescent . . - 1. S. pungens. 
Leaves linear. Branches glabrous . . ° . . 2. S. capitata. 
1. S. pungens, Fenzl in Linnea, xvii. 326. Undershrub, less 
than 1 ft. high, much branched, rigid, pubescent with grey or brownish 
hairs. Leaves all alternate, less than 4 in, long, oblong-elliptic, obtuse. 
Inflorescences terminal, short-peduncled ; in fruit } in. broad, ovoid, 
with much fine brown hair. Staminodes small, ovate-—Moquin in DC, 
Prodr. xiii. ii. 308; Hook. f. in Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii, 30. 
S. pungens, var. longearistata, Schinz in Engl. Jahrb. xxi, 181, in 
Bull. Herb. Boiss. v. Append. iii. 64. S. lewcoclada, Lopr. in Engl. 
Jahrb. xxvii. 45, 47. 
Lower Guinea. (reat Namaqualand; Fleck, 22a. 
Also in Western South Africa. 
Fleck’s plant may have been collected near Rehoboth, or may have been extra- 
