Pheoptilum. | NYCTAGINE (Cooke). 397 
ovule solitary, inserted near the base of the cell; style filiform, 
exserted ; stigma penicillate. Fruit enclosed in the indurated 
longitudinally 4-winged perianth-tube. Seed erect, albuminous ; 
embryo hooked. 
Spinous shrubs with grey or yellowish bark ; leaves short, narrow, linear, 
coriaceous ; flowers polygamo-dicecious, not involucrate, in axillary fascicles, with 
short pedicels. 
Distrts. Species 2, in Tropical and South Africa, 
1. P. spinosum (Radlk. in Abhandl. Naturw. Ver. Bremen, viii. 
436); a small shrub with woody stem furnished with numerous 
sharp spines reaching } in. long ; branches many, running out into 
spines ; leaves 4—5 lin. long, 4 lin. broad, linear-cuneate, obtuse, 
thick, in fascicles along the branches ; perianth-tube 4 lin. long, 
about 5 lin. in diam. at the mouth; lobes 2 lin. long, suborbicu- 
lar ; staminal tube 4 lin. long; filaments about 5 in. long; fruit a 
4—5-winged anthocarp 8 lin. long, 6 lin. broad, enclosed in the per- 
sistent perianth-tube. Baker & Wright in Dyer, Fl. Trop. Afr. vi. 
i 9. P. Heimerli, Engl. Jahrb. xix. 133. Amphoranthus spinosus, 
S. Moore in Journ. Bot. 1902, 305, t. 441, fig. A (in p. 408 of the same 
publication Moore withdraws the genus in favour of Radlkofer’s). 
Sout AFRICA: without locality, Shaw! 
CenTRAL Recion: Calvinia Div. ; near Hantam, Meyer. 
Also in Tropical Africa. 
IV. PISONIA, Linn. 
Male inflorescence in paniculate cymes. Perianth campanulate ; 
limb 5-lobed or 5-toothed ; segments induplicate-valvate, erect or 
spreading. Stamens 5-10, exserted ; filaments connate below into a 
tube or ring ; anthers oblong or didymous. Female inflorescence in 
paniculate cymes. Perianth tubular, usually enlarged at the base. 
Ovary elongate, ovoid, sessile ; ovule solitary ; style slender, included 
or exserted ; stigma capitellate, peltate or lacerate. Fruit enclosed 
in the coriaceous or hardened oblong, linear or clavate perianth- 
base, cylindric, compressed or 5-angled, with 5 viscid ribs or with 
5 single or double rows of viscid stipitate glands ; utricle elongate, 
membranous. Seed with a hyaline testa adnate to the pericarp ; 
embryo straight ; albumen scanty, soft ; radicle inferior. 
Trees or shrubs unarmed or with axillary spines ; leaves opposite or alternate, 
sessile or petiolate, entire ; flowers small, dicecious (rarely moncecious or herma- 
phrodite), in paniculate, subsessile or pedunculate cymes; bracteoles 2-3, not 
involucrate. 
Disrrrs. Species about 30, cosmopolitan in the tropics, chiefly American, 4 in 
Mauritius. 
1. P. aculeata (Linn. Sp. Pl. ed. i. 1026); a large scandent shrub 
with many curved often nearly opposite stout spines ; trunk reaching 
