Tab. 5479. 



vitis macropus. 



Gouty -stemmed Vine. 



Nat. Ord. Ajipelide^e. — Tetrandria Moxogynia. 

 Gen. Char. {Vide supra, Tab. 5472.) 



Vitis rnacropus ; succulenta glauca, trunco ovato carnoso tiapiformi, ramis bre- 

 vibus erectis simplicibus lierbaceis ecirrhosis, foliis 5-foliolatis (infiino trifo- 

 liolato), foliolis ovato-ellipticis breviuscule petiolatis, junioribus praecipue 

 albo-tomentosis undulato-plicatisqiie, stipulis binis oppositis lato-lanceolatis, 

 floribus cymosis, petalis cobserentibus calyptriformibus. 



Cissui rnacropus. Welw. in Journ. Proceed, of Linn. Soc. v. S.p. 77. 



At our Tab. 5472 of this volume we gave a figure and descrip- 

 tion of a very remarkable gouty-stemmed Vine of tropical Western 

 Africa {V. Bainesii), accompanied by some interesting extracts 

 from a recent account of Dr. Welwitsch of another and nearly 

 allied species found by that gentleman, the Vitis (or Cissus,We\w.) 

 rnacropus. Of this, which has also flowered at Kew, we now 

 offer a figure, and the description we shall translate from the able 

 author's own words. We received the plant from Dr. Welwitsch, 

 who introduced the plant to the gardens at Lisbon, where, as 

 with us, it flowered in April and May, a season which corresponds 

 with the autumn in its native country, South Benguela. It 

 there grows in brackish {subsalsis) rocky plains of the Serra dos 

 Montes Negros, near Mossamedes, also in dry mountains of 

 Giraul towards the east, at an elevation of four to six hundred 

 feet above the sea-level. 



Descr. A dwarf tree, one to two and a half feet high, quite 

 succulent. The trunk forms a large ovato-conical bulb towards 

 the apex, bi-tribrachiate, covered with a smooth herbaceous- 

 green hark and a whitish-brown pergamentaceous epidermis, 

 which separates from the bark in lamellae as in the Birch-tree. 

 Hoot consisting of long cylindrical subsimple fibres. Branches 

 short, half to a foot and a half long, two to four inches thick, 

 towards their apices dividing abruptly into branchtets producing 



NOVEMBER IsT, 1864. 



