870 ASCLEPIADEZ (Brown). | Pectinaria. 
3. P. arcuata (N. E. Br.) ; stems 2—4 (or more) in. long, 3-5 lin. 
thick, arching-procumbent and then diving underground, sometimes 
rising again to the surface, but always finishing their growth 
underground, forming loops $—1 in. high, very obtusely and some- 
what obscurely 4-angled, with slightly flattened sides, somewhat 
tessellately tuberculate along the angles, with the tubercles varying 
from scarcely prominent to } lin. long, apiculate, glabrous, green, 
not glaucous, flowering along the sides or under the loops ; flowers 
1-3 in a fascicle ; pedicels 1-14 lin. long, glabrous, green; sepals 
1 lin. long, ovate, subulate-acuminate, recurved at the tips, 
glabrous; corolla in general outline acuminate from a short ovoid 
base, glabrous and smooth outside and within ; tube 14 lin. long, 
cup-shaped or subhemispheric, straw-coloured or pale yellowish 
outside, dark purple within, the dark colour divided to half-way 
down into 5 ovate lobes or rounded crenations extending up the 
base of the lobes ; lobes 34 lin, long, 1-1} lin. broad at the base, 
thence gradually tapering to the acute connate tips, not recurved at 
the margins, but separating so as to form narrow lanceolate openings 
between them, pinkish or pale purple-tinted on the back, creamy- 
white, spotted with purple at the tips on the inner face, not ciliate ; 
outer and inner corona-lobes apparently in one series, bright yellow, 
with the 5 lobes alternating with the anthers (outer corona) minute, 
scarcely } lin, long, deltoid, acute, ascending-spreading, the other 5 
(inner corona) } lin. long, more than } lin. broad and almost as 
thick, erect, subclavate-oblong, very obtuse or subtruncate, scarcely 
exceeding the level of the anthers, with their rounded backs 
projecting like 5 stout ribs beyond the outer lobes. 
Coast Reeion : Bedford Div. ; found under a bush about 9 miles south-south- 
east of Bedford, very rare, Pillans, 182! 
The habit of this plant is extraordinary ; several of the Stapeliex produce 
underground shoots, but no other is known which seems to invariably finish the 
growth of its aerial shoots underground, as Mr. Pillans informs me (and as is the 
case in the cultivated plant seen) this one always does. 
4. P. articulata (Haw. Suppl. Pl. Succ. 14); plant dwarf, tufted ; 
branches procumbent or ascending, 1-2 in. long, 4—} in. thick, 
oblong, somewhat tessellately 6-angled or with 6 series of short 
stout conical tubercles, apiculate or acute, with a small bud in the 
axil of each, glabrous, ferruginous, with purplish branches ; flowers 
solitary in the grooves between the angles at or towards the tips of 
the branches ; pedicels apparently about 1 lin. long, thick, glabrous ; 
sepals lanceolate, acute; corolla bud-like, about } in. in diam., 
papillate and greenish outside, pearly-papillate and blackish-red 
within, glabrous, not ciliate ; lobes deltoid, connate at the tips, with 
reflexed margins, leaving narrowly ovate acute openings between 
them ; outer corona pectinate, blackish-red, white below; inner 
corona-lobes blackish. Sweet, Hort. Brit. ed. i. 276; G. Don, Gen. 
— Syst. iv. 122; K. Schum. in Engl. and Prantl, Pflanzenfam. iv. ii. 281. 
Schlechter in Journ. Bot. 1898, 486. Stapelia articulata, Ait. Hort. 
