Fleurya.] CXXIIIp. URTICACEH (Rendle). 251 
a starved form remarkable for having the leaves generally opposite. Hiern 
was presumably misled by this character to assign the plants to the genus 
Adicea (Pilea), as he describes the leaves as opposite though in one of the speci- 
mens they are alternate only. In other characters of leaf, flower and fruit the 
plants are identical with Fleurya moorcana ; the linear subapical style is typically 
that of Fleurya. Hiern describes the plants as dicecious, but of four flower- 
bearing specimens three have both male and female flowers. 
7. F. podocarpa, Wedd. in DC. Prodr. xvi. i. 76. <A  stoloni- 
ferous herb, sometimes almost an undershrub, 1-5 ft. high; stem, 
petioles and peduncles more or less densely covered with whitish 
spreading or appressed stinging hairs, or glabrate ; stolons creeping 
beneath or on the surface of the soil. Leaves on shorter or longer 
petioles, membranous, ovate to deltoid-ovate, acuminate, base sub- 
truncate to bluntly wedge-shaped, margin dentate to crenate-dentate, 
teeth blunt, 3-nerved at the base, with 4-6 ascending lateral nerves 
on each side above, 2-4 in. long, 14-23 in. wide, or smaller on the 
stolons, more or less hairy to glabrate, hairs white and appressed, 
more frequent on the lower face, with short linear cystoliths con- 
spicuous on the lower face ; petiole generally shorter but sometimes 
longer than the blade, up to 34 in. long ; stipules 3-6 lin. long, the 
free portions lanceolate-subulate. Inflorescences unisexual, rarely 
androgynous, the male forming dense roundish clusters on long 
peduncles which spring directly from the underground stem as naked 
Scapes or are axillary ; peduncle fleshy, rosy or purplish, limp, erect- 
Spreading or ascending, but generally much exceeding the petiole, 
1-12 in. long ; inflorescence } to 10} in. long, sometimes with a few 
short branches in the lower part ; flower clusters 2 to 6 lin. in diam., 
subsessile or on short pedicels ; male perianth usually 5- (rarely 4-), 
partite, segments elliptic-ovate, 1 lin. long, whitish-green, rosy out- 
side, and sparingly hispid, “anthers dehiscing explosively with a 
Momentary development of heat” (Welwitsch). Female cymes 
Meonspicuous, loosely few-flowered in the lower leaf-axils or on the 
stolons, weak, becoming reflexed, shorter than the petioles ; perianth 
Campanulate, 4-lobed to below the middle, the anterior segment 
smaller than the remaining three ; stigma linear-tapering, recurving, 
1 lin. long, with a pair of shorter (about } lin. long), basal linear 
appendages. Achenes often produced underground, compressed- 
Ovate, 14-2 lin. long, with a pyriform obscurely tuberculate central 
area, enveloped at the base by the persistent perianth.—Engl. 
PA. Ost-Afr. C. 163 (including var. amphicarpa, Engl.), and in Mild- 
braed, Wiss. Ergebn. Deutsch. Zentr.-Afr. Exped. 1907-8, u1. 190 ; 
Th. & Hél, Durand, Syll. Fl. Congol. 511; var. fulminans, Hiern 
in Cat. Afr. Pl. Welw. i. 989. Fleurya sp. no. 1, Benth. in Hook. 
Niger FI. 517. Haynea ovalifolia, Schumach. in Schumach. & Thonn. 
kr. Guin. Pl. 406. 
Upper Q@uinea. Liberia: Cape Palmas, Ansell! Ashanti: Assin Yan 
Kumassi, Cummins, ‘173 | 232! Eade near Lome, Warnecke, 438 ! and 
Without precise locality, Bawmann, 182! Southern Nigeria: Nun River, 
