82 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



There is also a specimen in Kew Herbarium from the collections of the late General 

 Sabine, given by Mr E. H. Scott, F.R.S. 



"Strinp-wood." 



This elegant and graceful miniature tree is believed to be quite extinct now. Rox- 

 burgh states that it grew on the elevated parts of the south face of Diana's Peak ; Burchell, 

 in his manuscript notes, gives a locality in a woody hollow near the Round Tower; and 

 Melliss has the following note : — " The last plant I saw of it in the island was one that had 

 been transplanted to Oakbank about twenty years ago. It grew to a small tree about 

 eighteen inches high, and blossomed and seeded freely, but is no longer there." 



We cannot follow Midler in regarding it as a variety of the Mauritian Acalypha 

 reticulata ; and in all probability he would not have reduced it to that species had he 

 seen as complete specimens as we have. He says : — " Primo intuitu ob folia ambitu 

 latiuscula, late subrhombeo-ovata et ob partem basilarem nudam spicarum l-g-2 cm., 

 longam specifice diversa videtur, sed nullo charactere firmo distingui potest." In the first 

 place, it is readily distinguished by its general appearance ; then the very differently shaped 

 leaves are thicker in texture, and have long red petioles and red veins ; and the seed-vessel 

 is quite destitute of the prickles so prominent on the upper back part of the carpels of the 

 seed-vessel of Acalypha reticulata. The bracts, too, of the female flowers are much larger; 

 and the pendent male spikes in well-developed specimens are eight or nine inches long. 

 Roxburgh describes it in the following words: — "A beautiful small tree, a native of elevated 

 parts of the south face of Diana's Peak, and called String-tree by the natives on account 

 of its numei'ous beautiful red male spikes, which hang in great profusion from every twig. 

 Ultimate branches tubercled with the scars of the fallen leaves ; above, where the leaves 

 remain, coloured and smooth, the petioles, nerves, and veins are also red and smooth." 



Euphorbia chamsesyce, Linn. ? 



En /ill urbia chamaisyce, Linn. 1 var. (vel species nova?) 



Euphorbia rosea, Koxb. in Beatson's St Helena Tracts, p. 308; Melliss, St Hel., p. 319, non Retz. 



Euphorbia prostrata, Burchell MSS. vix Ait. 



St Helena. — Indigenous? In dry mountains near the sea — Burchell, 110 ; common 

 on the barren rocky outskirts — Melliss; without locality — Haughton; Whitehead. 



" French Grass." 



We have been unable to match this, but in a genus like Euphorbia we shrink from 

 founding a new species upon what may be only a slightly altered state of some well-known 

 one, or even exactly the same as a described species. Roxburgh treated it as an introduced 

 plant, and named it Euphorbia rosea, which it is not. Burchell, who did not distinguish 

 between the native and introduced plants, collected it in Sandy Bay ; Melliss expresses his 

 opinion that it is probably indigenous. 



