Microtea. | PHYTOLACCACE (Hill). 455 
Phytolaceacex, a view which we cannot adopt. In Bentham & Hooker’s Genera 
Plantarum, i. 858, the genus is classified under Ficoidex, and Walter in Engler’s 
Das Pflanzenreich, iv. 83, p. 25, upholds this view. 
I. MICROTEA, Sw. 
Flowers hermaphrodite. Perianth 5-partite ; lobes equal or nearly 
so, usually erect in fruit. Stamens 3-8, hypogynous ; filaments free, 
filiform ; anthers subglobose, 2-celled. Ovary 1-celled ; styles 2-5, 
free or united at the base, papillose above. Fruit obovoid, more or 
less warted or spiny, seated on the persistent perianth. Seed 
vertical ; embryo peripheric, surrounding the central farinaceous 
albumen. 
Annual, usually branched, herbs; leaves alternate, quite entire ; flowers 
small, white, in long slender spikes or racemes ; bracts membranous, persistent. 
Distris. Species about 10, chiefly in tropical South America; 4 in South 
Africa, 1 of which extends into the tropics. 
Fruits smooth ne he as ie set ... (1) polystachya. 
Fruits muricate it ia ish — ve ... (2) tenuissima. 
Fruits ribbed : 
Ribs of fruit prominent ; spikes elongate, rigid ... (3) Burchellii. 
Ribs of fruit inconspicuous ; spikes slender ... ... (4) gracilis. 
1. M. polystachya (N. E. Br. in Kew Bulletin, 1909, 135) ; 
undershrub, branched, about 1 ft. high ; leaves spathulate-linear, 
subcoriaceous, 4—} in. long, slightly mucronate, apex incurved ; in- 
florescence spicate, 6-9 in. long, rigid ; bracts and bracteoles orbicular- 
lanceolate, acute or acuminate, irregularly toothed or subentire, half 
as long as perianth ; perianth-lobes 5, equal, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 
obtuse; stamens 4; filaments longer than the perianth-lobes ; 
ovary ovoid; stigmas 4, filiform, spreading ; fruit globose, smooth, 
2 lin. in diam. Lophiocarpus polystachyus, Turcz. in Bull. Soc. Nat. 
Mose. xvi. 56.  Wallinia polystachya, Moquin in DC. Prodr. xiii. 
li. 143. 
Western Recion: Little Namaqualand; by the Orange River, near Ver- 
leptpram, Drége, 2940! hills at I’us, 2800 ft., Schlechter, 11417 ! 
2. M. tenuissima (N. E. Br. in Kew Bulletin, 1909, 134) ; annual, 
4-11 in. high, slender; stems simple or branched from the base ; 
leaves few, filiform, 4-1 in. long, mucronate ; inflorescence spicate, 
14-6 in. long; bracteoles 2-3 under each flower, about as long as 
the perianth ; perianth-lobes 5, 1 lin. in diam., subregular, obovate, 
finely l-nerved ; stamens 3-4 ; filaments longer than the perianth ; 
anthers subglobose, dorsifixed ; ovary ovoid, warted, }$ lin. long ; 
styles 2-4; fruit obovoid, 1 lin. long, muricate. phiocarpus 
tenuissimus, Hook. f. in Hook. Ic. Pl. xv. 50, t. 1463, figs. 10-11 ; 
Baker & C. H. Wright in Dyer, Fl. Trop. Afr. vi, 3, 96. 
