412 AMARANTACE& (Cooke and Wright). [Sericorema. 
IV. SERICOREMA, Lopr. 
Inflorescence long and laxly spicate, the partial inflorescences 
consisting of 1-3 perfect flowers, sessile and distant along the 
rhachis of the spike, supported by 2 sterile flowers represented by 
a fascicle of recurved spines united into a stalk below. Bracteoles 
each enclosing a tuft of soft woolly hairs which cover the spines 
and which are enlarged in fruit so as almost to envelop the flower. 
Stamens long, without interposed staminodes. Ovary ovoid; style 
scarcely any, stout; stigma with a tuft of hairs. Seed doubled 
over on itself, somewhat horseshoe-shaped, compressed, red, glabrous ; 
embryo annular. 
Erect herbs ; leaves scattered, alternate and fasciculate, linear or oblong, sessile, 
quite entire. 
Distris. Species 2, in Tropical and South Africa, 
Sir J. Hooker established Sericorema as a section of Sericocoma in Benth. et 
Hook. f. Gen. Pl. iii. 80, but suggested that it might be entitled to generic rank. 
1, S. remotiflora (Lopr. in Engl. Jahrb. xxvii. 39); stem 
herbaceous, erect, glabrous, paniculately branched above; branches 
numerous, ascending, terete, striate, glabrous; leaves sessile, i} 
in. long, 1—} lin. broad, alternate or fasciculate, linear-subulate, 
Crnrrat ReGion : Murrayburg Div. ; mountain near Snyders Kraal, Tyson, 422 ! 
Kactanarkt Raion: Griqualand West; Griquatown, Burchell, 1895! 1942! 
Albania (Douglas), between the Orange River und Vaal River, 4500 ft., Bolus, 
1834! St. Clair, Douglas, Orpen, 224! Orange River Colony ; by the Vaal River, 
Burke, 185! Zeyher, 1434! damp places in low valleys, Mrs. Barber ! Transvaal ; 
Warm Bath, Miss Leendertz, 1347! South African Gold Fields, Baines ; Dronk- 
fontein, east of Nylstroom River, Nelson, 367 ! 
Lopriore makes the glabrous ovary a characteristic of this genus. In what 
may be considered the type of the genus, Z’richinium remotijlorwm, Hook., figured 
in Hook. Ic. Pl.1.c., the ovary is shown to be villous, a condition which I hare 
invariably found to exist. 
