E12 SOUTH NIGERIAN PLANTS 
leaf, but emitting their flowers. The drawing of this form gives 
the flowers of a pure blue. These resemble closely the types of 
the plant as described by Schumann, collected in the Cameroons 
by Preuss (n. 352) and in the East Gaboon by Bates (n. 548). 
The second drawing (n. 57) shows a plant differing in that 
the spikes are freed from the leaf-sheath and spreading sub- 
horizontally. The flower here is given as of a lilac colour. The 
specimens corresponding to this drawing resemble those of the 
typical H. azurea except that the spikes have spread from the 
sheath. In other specimens the spikes in two or three fascicles 
are quite free and spreading, and elongated to as much as 30 em. 
I conclude that these are only a later stage development of the 
form which commences to flower before the spikes are actually 
free of the petiole-sheath. The flowers are very thin and 
fugacious and preserve ill ; the foliage and fruit, however, are the 
same in all. 
A third form or state has a single spike emitted directly from 
the rhizome without any of the basal leaves or sheaths developed 
into true leaves. The few specimens are rather poor, and the 
drawing is only a pencil sketch. It is quite possible that this is 
a distinct species, but it may be an occasional sport of an 
inflorescence in which the foliar stem has been suppressed or not 
evolved. A similar modification occurs occasionally in Globba, 
Costus afer, C. speciosus and other members of the family. 
This interesting and charming genus whose distribution— 
Africa, Burma and Java—is peculiar, requires further in- 
vestigation, 
DIOSCOREACEZ. 
Dioseorea polyantha Rendle. Oban; n. 781. The specimen 
is in male flower ; the flowers correspond with those of the type 
specimen from Angola, but the leaves are partly opposite. 
The other species collected are generally distributed in Tropical 
or West Tropical Africa. 
LILIACEZ. 
The specimens representing this order are generally more or 
less widely distributed in Tropical Africa. Of the eight species 
of Dracaena two are Nigerian, namely, D. @odsefiana Sander 
(Lagos) and D. cylindrica Hook. f. (Calabar). Two species of 
Chlorophytum are from the Cameroons, and one from Sierra Leone. 
Dracaena Talbotii Rendle sp. nov. Planta foliis infra 
spicam aggregatis sessilibus linearibus utrinque angustatis 
acuminatis basi vaginantibus, nervo mediano crasso per totum 
D 
