THE VEGETATION OF HARPTREE COMBE 297 



time, in N. Wales. I never saw C. patula growing except in a 

 roadside hedge in Worcestershire, in which county it is widely- 

 distributed, and once in Switzerland. The personal nature of 

 these observations I make no apology for, because they all tend 

 to show how strange and perplexing is the distribution of these 

 two handsome plants. The Vetch is perennial, the Campanula 

 usually biennial. 



PSEUDOMUSS^NDA: A NEW GENUS OF EUBIACE^. 

 By H. F. Wernham, D.Sc, F.L.S. 



The Eubiaceous genus Musscenda gives its name to the tribe 

 Musssendeae, characterized by valvate aestivation of the corolla- 

 lobes, and fleshy, indehiscent fruit containing many small angular 

 seeds. Some species — particularly M. frondosa — are cultivated as 

 ornamental plants for the sake of the flowers ; for, in many of the 

 latter, one calyx-segment is expanded into a broad, white or 

 coloured, petaloid lamina, probably for the purpose of insect- 

 attraction. 



Now one species for some time regarded as a MusscBnda, native 

 in the Nile-land districts of Tropical Africa, and frequently cultivated 

 elsewhere, bears a loculicidal capsule as its fruit. This is M. luteola 

 Dehle, described in his Cent. PL Afr. Cailliaud (1826), p. 65 ; but 

 he makes no reference to the fruit. The same species had been 

 described previously under the genera Ophiorhtza and Manettia : 

 0. lanceolata, by Forskal, Fl. ^gypt-Arab (1775), 42, who describes 

 the fruit as a bilocular capsule ; and M. lanceolata, by Vahl, Symb. 

 (1790), 12, who urges its inclusion in Mayiettia on the grounds of 

 floral and fruiting characters. 



The character of the fruit of this plant certainly suffices to 

 remove it not only from the genus Musscenda, but also from the 

 tribe Musscendece, in spite of its resemblance in habit to other 

 species of that genus. The most striking feature of Musscenda, 

 the petaloid enlargement of some of the calyx-lobes, is quite 

 exceptional in the tribe ; but it occurs not uncommonly among 

 tropical American Cinchoneee, Condaminese, and Eondeletieae.. 

 Indeed, all the critical characters of the plant in question — the 

 valvate aestivation of the corolla, the capsular fruit with its 

 numerous unwinged seeds — point unerringly to Condamineae as 

 the proper tribe for this so-called Musscmida, where it readily finds 

 a place in the sub-tribe PiiikneyecB. Pinkneya and Pogonopus, the 

 present members of this sub-tribe, are confined to the New World; 

 and our plant cannot be included in either of these, if only on 

 account of the structure and position of the stamens, the anthers 

 being almost sessile and set just below the mouth of the corolla. 



Mr. Hiern (in Fl. Trop. Afr. iii, 71) refers to this plant as 

 Musscsnda luteola Del., and quotes as a synonym Vignaudia luteola 

 Schweinf. in Schweinf. et Aschers. Enum. p. 282 (1867). This 

 refers the plant in question — a Musscenda luteola Del. — to the 

 genus Vignaldia of A. Richard, Tent. Fl. Abyss, i (1847), 357, 



Journal of Botany. — Vol, 54, [October, 1916.] y 



