on one side as in Monadenium. 'Two more species were 
added to Monadenium by Dr. Stapf in 1900, and since 
then the number of known Monadenia has increased to 
a score. Most of them appear to be extremely local ; 
the area occupied by the genus extends from Abyssinia 
and Somaliland to Nyasaland, Ngamiland and Angola. 
Within the genus Monadenium, however, the species 
arrange themselves in two natural groups. In the first 
group, to which the original WM. coccineum, Pax, belongs, 
the bract-involucres are distinctly dorsi-ventral, the two 
bracts being asymmetric, and so joined on one side as 
to form a single 2-keeled and usually 2-dentate or 
2-cuspidate involucre. In the second group, to which 
the subject of our figure belongs, the bract-involucres are 
fairly regularly cupular or bell-shaped, the two bracts 
being nearly symmetric and usually equally united at 
the base or up to the middle. With these characters are 
associated in our plant that of having simple axillary 
inflorescences in place of branched inflorescences as in 
M. coceineum, and that of the presence of a perianth in 
the female flower whereas in JM. coccineum no perianth 
was noticed by Pax. On this account the plant now 
described was made the basis of a distinct genus 
Lortia by Rendle in 1898, and the validity of this 
genus has since been accepted by Pax. An examination 
of the original type of Monadenium shows, however, 
that there the female flower has a perianth very 
like that of Zortia, and since the degree of branching 
in the types of the two genera merely represents 
extreme manifestations in opposite directions of one 
character, it has been found by Brown to be desirable to 
include Lortia in the older genus Monadenium. The 
difference in the involucre of the two types is, however, 
so marked that it is at least necessary to recognise in 
Lortia a distinct section, and it may with fuller knowledge 
be advisable to restore it to the rank of a genus. The 
type of this section, Jf. (Lortia) erubescens, was discovered 
by Mrs. Lort Phillips on the Wagga Mountains in 
Somaliland in 1897, and was met with again on the 
Colis Range in Somaliland, at nearly 6,000 feet elevation, 
by Dr. Drake-Brockman in 1914. Other specimens 
obtained by the same collector from the Arussi and 
