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XVII. Report on the Liliacee, lridacee, Hypowidacee, and Нетодотасее of 
Welwitsch’s Angolan Herbarium. Ву J. G. Влкіж, Esq., F.L.S. 
(Plates XXXIV.-XXXVI.) 
Read March 15%, 1877. 
THe present paper is devoted to a systematic account of the Liliacez, Iridaceæ, 
Hypoxidaceze, and Hæmodoraceæ of the Angolan herbarium of the late Dr. Welwitsch. 
As will be seen, a very large proportion of the species are new to science. In the 
.Liliaeez there are two new genera, represented by five species; but the remaining 
uovelties all belong to generic types already known either in Central Africa or at the 
Cape. Тһе previously known flora of Central Africa in these orders is poor in numbers, 
and does not possess any strongly marked individuality of character. Its members, with 
few exceptions, belong either to the great cosmopolitan or great widely spread exclu- 
sively Old-World genera, like Ornithogalum, Scilla, Urginea, Chlorophytum, Asparagus, 
Dracena, and Gladiolus, or are out-wandering representatives of the well-known cha- 
racteristic Cape types, such ав Aloë, Kniphofia, Eriospermwm, Аиса, Morea, Ano- 
matheca, Geissorhiza, Aristea, and Lapeyrousia. Three well-known genera which 
attain their maximum in Central Africa are Dracena, Sanseviera, and Gloriosa. Wal- 
leria, with two species, is the only previously known endemic Central-African genus. 
Dr. Welwitsch’s collection, though it will more than double the number of species known 
in Central Africa, does not materially alter these general characters. In Liliacew it 
adds the two new endemic genera to which I have just referred; it carries within the 
tropic four Cape genera not previously known as intertropical—Sandersonia, Tulbaghia, 
Schizobasis, and Haworthia—and plants in more firmly Aloë and Eriospermum as inter- 
tropical genera. In the other orders all the genera represented are known in Central 
Africa already. I need scarcely add my tribute of appreciation of the excellence of 
Dr. Welwitsch’s specimens, and of the pains which he must have taken in selecting them 
to show all the various stages and characters of the plants as fully and clearly as possible, 
or explain that in drawing up these descriptions I have been in many cases greatly 
indebted to the notes which he made upon the plants at the time when they were 
gathered. In my ‘ Systema’ I have already indicated the position in the sequence of 
species of the Iridacez of this collection. In the present paper І have done this for the 
Liliaceze by means of the numbers prefixed to the names, which refer to my mono- 
graphs already published in the Journal of the Linnean Society. My best thanks are 
due to the executors of the late Dr. Welwitsch for the facilities they have given me in 
consulting the specimens and notes, which latter have been separated and copied for the 
British Museum, and upon both of which this paper is founded. 
SECOND SERIES.— BOTANY, VOL. 1. 2N 
