162  -HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA.” Sanseviera, 
ers, striated, smooth. Flowers middle-sized, greenish 
white, erect, collected in fascicles of from four to six, on 
little, regularly distant, tuberosities of the rachis. Bractes 
small, membranaceous. Pedicles clubbed, short, ascend- 
ing, one-flowered. Calyx none. Corol one-petalled, 
not in the least wrinkled, funnel-shaped, half six-cleft ; 
divisions nearly linear. Filaments length of the divisions 
of the corol, and inserted into the base. Anthers linear- 
oblong incumbent, half two-cleft. © Germ three-lobed, 
three-celled, each containing a single ovula, attached to 
the axis. Style length of the stamens. Stigma three- 
sided, clubbed, entire. ‘ Berries one, two or three, slight- 
ly united ; when single, globular, fleshy, orange-coloured, 
smooth, the size of a pea, one-seeded. Seed globular. 
Embryo simple, lodged near the base of the perisperm on’ 
the outside. 
OBSERVATIONS. 
In: a good soil, when the plants are regularly and mo- 
derately watered, the leaves grow to be from three to four 
feet long, and contain a number of fine, remarkably 
strong, white fibres, which run their whole length. The 
natives make their best bow strings of these fibres. 
To separate them from the pulpy parts, they lay a single 
fleshy leaf, on a smooth bit of board, on one end of whic 
(leaf,) they place one of their great toes, and with a thin 
bit of hard stick held between the two hands, they serape 
the leaf from them, and very quickly remove every part. 
of the pulp, It can also be removed by steeping the 
leaves in water, till the pulpy parts rot, &c. as is practis- 
ed with flax, and hemp in Europe, but with me this dis 
coloured the fibres much, 
_ About eighty pounds of the fresh weitiiis vuaaet’@ one 
pound of the clean ie fibres: saci ‘were pliers seta at 
Pesce 
