78 CXLIII, COMMELINACEE (CLARKE). | Cyanotis. 
9. CYANOTIS, D. Don; Benth et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 851. 
Sepals 3, lanceolate, more or less connate at the base. Petals 3, 
‘small, blue or reddish, long-clawed, free at the base, the claws more or 
less adherent into a tube. Stamens 6, perfect, similar; filaments with. 
many or few beaded hairs, rarely quite glabrous. Ovary sessile, hairy 
at the top, 3-celled; ovules 2 in each cell. Capsule thin, 3-celled, 
loculicidally 3-valved, normally 6—5-seeded. Seeds 2 in each cell, super- 
posed ; the large embryostega at the apex of the upper seed, at the 
base of the lower.—Flowers, in all the Tropical African species, packed 
closely in very short scorpicid cymes; the falcate bracts frequently 
imbricate in 2 rows, or the rows are not well marked, the flowers 
appearing irregularly and densely clustered ; the clusters are sometimes 
in the leaf-sheaths, sometimes collected in heads—i.e. compound 
clusters. 
Species 30 or more in the warm regions of the Old World. 
The Tropical African species all belong to the subgenus Lu-Cyanotis, and are very 
closely allied; the flowers and capsules are so very similar in all the species that the 
description in the genus may do well for all. 
*Stem suberect from a bulb. 
Infiorescences in smal] heads, exserted from the leaf- 
sheaths. 
Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate. 
Bulb about 4 in. in diam. : : ee CO. hirsuta. 
Bulb scarcely + in. in diam. . : : . 2. C. parasitica, 
Leaves linear : : : : x . 3. C. angusta. 
Inflorescences axillary, hardly exserted from the 
leaf-sheaths . : : : ; : . 4. C. feecunda. 
“Stem annual, suberect, slender, often much divided. 
Inflorescences dense, often clustered 3 : . §. C. lanata. 
Inflorescences very weak, few-flowered . : . 6. C. paueiflora. 
*=*Plants neither bulbous nor annual. Flowering stems often lateral ; sterile stems 
very short, bearing a tuft of larger leaves. 
Inflorescences not included (nor nearly included) in 
the leaf-sheaths. 
Stems abrupt at the base; roots thick. 
Flowering stems hemiscapose with 1 or 2 heads 7. C. longifolia. 
Flowering stems with well-developed leaves. 
Small plant with many axillary heads . . 8. C. polyrrhiza. 
Tall plant with few axillary heads. - 9. C. djurensis. 
Stem abrupt at the base; roots not thickened, 
Stems erect, hemiscapose; roots wiry. . . 10. C. cespitosa. 
Stems with well-developed leaves at the base . 11. C. wodiflora. 
Stem creeping in water, with slender rootlets . 12. C. Mannii. 
Inflorescences included, or nearly so, in the leaf- 
sheaths. 
Flowering stem 4-9 in. long, undivided . 13. C. somaliensis. 
Flowering stem 20 in. long, much-branched . 14. C. flexuosa. 
1. C. hirsuta, Fisch. et Mey. Ind. Sem. Hort. Petrop. viii. 57. 
Softly shaggy, or nearly glabrous. Bulb 3 in. in diam., eatable (Roth). 
Stem 3-15 in. long, suberect, often divided, with many heads, roundish, 
