Sebeea. | GENTIANES (Hill and Prain). 1057 
I. SEBAA, Soland. 
Calyx 4-5-lobed ; tube usually short or very short; lobes ovate, 
acute or acuminate, keeled or winged. Corolla 4—5-lobed ; tube 
cylindric, long or short; lobes oblong, spreading, contorted in 
wstivation. Stamens 4-5, inserted at or shortly below corolla 
sinuses ; filaments exserted or included, sometimes very short ; 
authers with or without an apical gland, sometimes with two at the 
base. Ovary 2-celled ; placentas axile ; ovules many ; style filiform, 
usually with a pair of papillate or glandular patches (apparently 
stigmatic) like a tubercular swelling near the base ; stigma capitate, 
clavate or bilobed, sometimes almost confluent with the swellings. . 
Capsule globose or ovoid, membranous or thinly coriaceous, septicidal, 
valves 2. Seeds many, minute and simple or larger and ridged or 
provided with frills. 
Annuai, biennial or perennial herbs; stems erect or more rarely procumbent, 
simple or branched with decurrent wings ; leaves opposite, sessile, herbaceous, 
eshy or coriaceous, sometimes forming a radical rosette; flowers small or of 
moderate size, yellow, less commonly white, arranged in terminal and axillary 
dichotomous cymes rarely solitary. 
Disrris. Species about 100, chiefly in South Africa, a few in Tropical Africa, 
Madagascar, India, Australia and New Zealand. 
Following the course adopted by Schinz in Mitteil. Geogr. Ges. Liibeck, xvii. 
1903, the genera Lagenias, E. Meyer, and Belmontia, E, Meyer, have been 
merged into Sebwa, Soland., since the differences between the 3 original genera 
appear to be of too slight a nature to be of generic value. In Benth. and Hook. f. 
Gen. Plant. vol. ii., the genus Lagenias is included with Sebxa, but Belmontia is 
maintained and Exochenium, Griseb., is merged into it. In Engl. und Prantl, 
Pflanzenfamilien, iv. ii., Gilg keeps up Sebea, Lagenias and Belmontia as distinct 
genera but unites Grisebach’s Exochenium with the latter. In the present work 
Exochenium is maintained as a distinct genus (cf. Schinz in Bull. Herb. Boiss. 
2° sér, vi. 714). The sections of this genus have been defined and some critical 
notes on the species published in the Kew Bulletin, 1908, 317-336. 
Section 1. TETRANDRIA. Calyx-segments, corolla-lobes and anthers, 4. 
Leaves numerous : : 
Leaves crowded towards the base to form a kind of : 
elongated basal rosette ... wes oe +» (1) capitata. 
Leaves scattered all along the stems : : 
Stems stout ; leaves ovate or cordate, coriaceous... (2) selerosepala. 
Stems slender; leaves lanceolate or ovate, herba- 
ceous, subpetiolate ... ... s+ eee (3) laxa, 
Leaves in 3-6 pairs : ws 
Leaves more or less fleshy, glaucous : oy 
Calyx-segments broad, elliptic-obovate, apiculate, 
without keel or wing ... ae ae ... (A) albens. 
x-segments with apical keel-wing: 
Flowers collected into small capitula; bracts 
deltoid or ovate-deltoid : ON et 
= ~— 
Cr ORT aa 
tee 
