394 - NYCTAGINEE (Cooke). [ Boerhaavia. 
Fruit enclosed in the ovoid, turbinate or clavate, obtuse or truncate 
perianth-tube, round, 5-ribbed or 5-angled, often viscidly glandular. 
Seed filling the pericarp, with testa adhering to it ; embryo hooked ; 
cotyledons thin, broad, enclosing a soft scanty albumen; radicle 
long. 
Erect or diffuse, often divaricately branched herbs ; leaves opposite, often in 
unequal pairs; flowers small, paniculate, umbellate or subcapitate, articulated 
with the pedicel. 
DistriB. Species about 20, throughout the tropics and warm temperate 
regions. 
Perianth scarcely 2 lin. long : 
Stems with horizontally spreading hairs ; branches of 
panicles fascicled, 2 together, with a large ciliate 
bract at their origin ... ey ie oe: : 
Hairs of stems not horizontally spreading ; branches 
of panicle not fascicled nor furnished with large 
(1) bracteata. 
Fruit clavate-oblong, not much tapered towards the 
base ; bracteoles acute .., $03 wei -.- (2) repens, 
var, di 
Fruit turbinate, much tapered towards the base ; 
bracteoles obtuse ... ee as e (3) adscendens. 
Perianth 6 lin. or more long ees Sts t t. isentd) pentakdah 
1. B. bracteata (T. Cooke in Kew Bulletin, 1909, 421); shrubby, 
erect ; stem terete, densely villous with horizontally spreading hairs, 
woody below ; leaves petiolate, 1} in. long, ¢ in. broad, to 2} in. 
long and 23 in. broad, broadly ovate, obtuse, more or less hairy on 
the nerves and with ciliate margins, rounded or subcordate at the 
base ; lower petioles long (about 4 as long as the blade), villous; 
flowers in lax leafy panicles, branches fascicled, two together with a 
large hairy and ciliate bract 3-6 lin. long at their origin, 1 branch 
bearing 2 or 3 sessile flowers at its apex, the other again similarly 
divided ; bracteoles 1 lin, long, ovate-lanceolate, subacute, mem- 
branous, with a dark conspicuous midrib ; perianth in bud reaching 
1} lin. long, the ovarian portion 4 lin. long in bud, subglobose, 
elongating afterwards ; stamens 3 ; fruit 14 lin. long, oblong, ribbed, 
glandular. 
KaLaHarI REGION: Transvaal ; Avoca near Barberton, 1900 ft., Galpin, 1240! 
Bechuanaland ; on the rocks at Chue Vley, Burchell, 2381! 
EasTERN REaIon: Natal ; Tugela, Gerrard, 1787 bis! 
There is 1 small specimen of this plant in Harvey’s Herbarium, Trinity College, 
Dublin, from Damara land, Tropical Africa, without collector’s name. 
2. B. repens, var. diffusa (Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. iv. 709); a 
variable diffuse herb; root large, fusiform ; stems usually several, 
prostrate or ascending, reaching 2-3 ft. long, divaricately branched, 
slender, cylindric, thickened at the nodes, minutely pubescent or 
nearly glabrous ; leaves in unequal pairs at each node, the larger 
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