330 OXXVIII. GNETACEH (Pearson). | Ephedra. 
Stapf, Die Arten der Gattung Ephedra (1889) 51, t. ii. xi. figs. 
1-7. 
Nile Land. Nubia: hills on the coast about 21° North Latitude, Bent! 
Somaliland: Ahl Mountains, 5000 ft., Hildebrandt, 887! 
Also in dry and desert regions of Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Egypt and the 
Mediterranean coast westwards to the Cyrenaica. 
2. GNETUM, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. ii. 419. 
Usually dicecious. Florets unisexual. Male florets : Envelope of 2 
median connate scales, tubular or the posterior lobe overlapping in 
bud; anthers 2 or 1, sessile on the summit of a central column ; 
pollen spherical. Female florets (perfect): utricle a close-fitting 
envelope contracted at the mouth, at length differentiated into a 
hard stony inner layer and a more or less fleshy and variously 
coloured outer layer, closely investing the seed; ovule with an 
integument and an aril; integument produced into a straight 
micropylar tube exserted through the orifices of the aril and 
utricle, truncate, toothed or fimbriate at the summit. Female 
florets (imperfect): like the perfect florets but without an aril, 
usually barren. Seed radially symmetrical; embryo developing 
in the fallen seed (? always); endosperm copious.—Large-leaved 
evergreen loosely twining lianes, or erect trees or shrubs with 
long smooth internodes and, in the African species, swollen 
nodes. Leaves opposite, petioled, net-veined. Spike with crowded 
or more distant nodes, terminating in a barren segment or 4 
perfect or an imperfect female floret; bisexual, bearing at each 
node an upper whorl of about 8 perfect female florets and a lower 
whorl of about 15 male florets ; or pseudobisexual, bearing at each 
node an upper whorl of about 8 imperfect (rarely 1 or more perfect) 
female florets and 4 or more basipetally developing and alternating 
whorls of male florets; or male, resembling the last but without 
female florets ; or female, with a single whorl of 8 or 9 perfect female 
florets at each node ; florets in each case more or less surrounded by 
jointed hairs or ramenta, the whole subtended by an entire or 2- 
toothed cupule. 
Species 15-30, in the tropical forest i f both hemispheres. Two 
species in West Africa. a ee 
Internode of male spike of the same diameter through- 
out its length, slender in dried (or old) specimens ; 
staminal column exserted from the mouth of the 
envelope. Leaves commonly less than 2 in. broad 1. G. africanum. 
Internode of the male spike in the fresh condition 
much thicker at the base than higher up: staminal 
column hardly exserted from the mouth of the en- 3 
velope. Leaves commonly more than 2 in. broad 2. @. bucholzianum. 
i; G. africanum, Welw. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxvii.73. A dicecious 
(Welwitsch) liane with twining stem, remotely branched, somewhat 
