Brunnichia,| CX, POLYGONACEEH (BAKER AND WRIGHT). 119 
). BRUNNICHIA, Banks; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 103. 
Flowers hermaphrodite. Perianth-tube short; lobes 5, equal, ovate. 
Stamens usually 8, inserted on the thick disk ; filaments filiform ; 
anthers subglobose. Ovary ampulliform, immersed in the thick disk; 
ovule 1, pendulous from a long funicle; styles 3, stigmatose at the 
apex. Nut enclosed in the persistent perianth, trigonous; pericarp 
coriaceous, intruded into the grooves of the seed. Seed with 6 deep 
grooves; endosperm slightly ruminate ; cotyledons oblong, rather longer 
than the radicle-—Climbing shrubs, with forked tendrils at the end 
of the branches. Leaves alternate, entire, petioled. Flowers. small, 
fascicled, arranged in long lax racemes; pedicels elongated in fruit and 
furnished with a coriaceous wing on one or both sides. 
A fourth species occurs in the Southern United States. 
Branches angular. 
Branches glandular-pubescent : : - 1. B. africana, 
Branches glabrous . : : ; : . 1. B. africana, var. glabra. 
Branches terete, glabrous . : : . . 2. B. erecta. 
1. B. africana, Welw. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxvii. 61. A widely 
scandent shrub; branches patent, angular, multisulcate between the 
angles, glandular-pubescent; tendrils (modified peduncles?) supra-axillary, 
forked, 2-4 in. long. Leaves oblong-ovate or ovate-elliptic, acuminate 
or cuspidate, usually cuneate at the base, quite entire, membranous, 
glabrous, 24-34 in. long, 14-2 in. wide, drying black ; petiole 3-6 lin, 
long, channelled above, pubescent. Racemes 3-6 in. long, increasing 
to 1 ft. in fruit, bearing fascicles of about 3 flowers about 6 lin. apart ; 
bracts ovate, acuminate, fleshy, membranous at the margins. Perianth- 
tube short; lobes oblong, acuminate, 2 lin. long, the three outer wider 
than the two inner, rosy inside, suberect during flowering, becoming 
connivent, hard and dusky purple in fruit. Pedicel in fruit nearly 
3 in. long and 4 lin. wide, crimson.—Oliv. in Hook. Ic. Pl. xiv. 21, 
t. 13828; Dammer in Engl. Jahrb. xxvi. 357; Hiern in Cat. Afr. Pl. 
Welw. i. 905. 
Lower Guinea. Angola: Golungo Alto; in forests by streams among the 
“steiner in Sobato de Bumba, and at the Capopa cataract near Sange, Welwitsch, 
1754! 
Var. glabra, Dammer in Eng]. Jahrb. xxvi. 357. A climber. Branches quite 
glabrous. 
Upper Guinea. Liberia: within 20 miles of Kakatown, Whyte! Gold Coast, 
Burton! Cameroons: Bipinde, Zenker, 1125! 20381! 2272! 22724! 2823! 
2. B. erecta, Aschers. in Jahrb. Kinigl. Bot. Gart, Berlin, i. 334. 
An erect shrub, about 10 ft. high, Branches terete, many-sulcate, 
quite glabrous. Leaves oblong-elliptic, about 2 in. long, nearly 1 in. 
wide, acuminate or nearly cuspidate, subcuneate at the base ; petiole 
slender, 4 lin. long. Panicle lax ; cymes 3-6-flowered, without tendrils. 
