| Tan. 7586, 
GOMPHOCARPUS serosvs. 
Native of Southern Arabia. 
Nat. Ord. AscLEPIADE®.—Tribe CYNANCHEA. 
Genus Gomruocarrus, Br.; (Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 753.) 
GompPHocaRrPus sefosus; suffruticosus, ramulis incano-tomentellis, foliis 
linearibus obtusis acutis apiculatisve glaberrimis in petiolum brevem 
angustatis, pedunculis 1-2-pollicaribus 6-8-floris pedicellisque sub- 
zequilongis pubescentibus, corolla rotate segmentis elliptico-ovatis 
subacutis reflexis stramineis, corone squamis gynostegium #quantibus 
poculiformibus trunecatis viridibus, oris angulis posticis paullo arrectis 
crenulatis, folliculis ovoideis rostratis setosis. 
G. setosus, Br. in Mem. Wern. Soc. vol. i. (1809) p. 38; Roem. §& Sch. Syst. 
vol. vi. p. 87; Deene in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. If. vol. ix. (1838) p- 324; et in 
DC. Prodr. vol. viii. p. 557. Kew Bullet. 1894, p. 335. 
G. fruticosus, Herb. Exsicc. Arab. Schweinf. n. 810. 
Asctepias setosa, Forsk. Fl. Aigypt. Arab. p. 51. Vahl, Symb. Bot. p. 23, 
t. viii. 
The plant here figured is of more interest botanically 
than horticulturally. It belongs to a very large genus, 
containing upwards of sixty species, closely allied to 
Asclepias, differing from that genus only in the want of a 
ligulate process within each of the cup-shaped bodies that 
form a corona round the column of anthers. The majority 
of the species are natives of the hot, dry regions of Arabia, 
and of North and especially of South Africa, one extending 
to the Mediterranean region. The genus was supposed to 
be confined to those countries until Bentham, when re- 
organizing the Order Asclepiadee for the “Genera 
Plantarum,” found that it was impossible to exclude from 
Gomphocarpus most of the species of the American genus 
 Acerates, Kll., thus adding upwards of a dozen to the 
former. 
G. setosus is most closely allied to G. fruticosus, Br. of 
the Eastern Mediterranean region, and North Africa, 
which has white corolla lobes with hairy margins, and two 
teeth on each side of the posterior margins of the coronal 
cups. 
Seeds of G. setosus were collected on hills near Bir 
May lst, 1897, 
