194 . A FLORA OF MANILA 
narrowed, petioled. Spikes terminal, 5 to 30 cm long, slender, the clusters 
of flowers remote, bracteate, woolly. Bristles of the imperfect flowers 
brown or purplish, stellately arranged, slender, hooked at the ends. 
In thickets along roads and trails, San Pedro Macati, Pasay, etc., fl. 
Aug.—Nov.; widely distributed in the Philippines, surely introduced. Trop- 
ical Asia, Africa, and Malaya. 
7. CYATHULA Loureiro 
"Ss 
Prostrate or ascending herbs with opposité leaves. Flowers clustered, 
the clusters spicate, reflexed in fruit. Perfect flowers 1 or 2 in each 
cluster, surrounded by imperfect ones reduced to sepals and with rigid 
hooked awns. Sepals 5, 1-nerved, acuminate. Stamens 5, connate, united 
below with the retuse or 2-fid staminodes. Ovary obovoid, ovules 1, pen- 
dulous. Fruit a small, ovoid, indehiscent utricle. (Diminutive of Greek 
“cup.”) 
Species about 10, of wide tropical distribution, the following in the 
Philippines. 
1. C. PROSTRATA (L.) Bl. Dayang (Tag.). 
An annual branched herb, the stems prostrate and creeping below, 
reaching a length of 1 m or more, the branches erect or ascending. 
Leaves rhomboid-oblong, 2 to 8 cm long, acute or obtuse, gradually 
narrowed from the middle to the acute base, nearly sessile. Spikes terminal 
and axillary, slender, peduncled, 5 to 20 cm long. Clusters of flowers 
numerous, ovoid, about 3 mm long, greenish. Sepals pubescent. 
In thickets, occasional, fl. Nov._Feb.; common and widely distributed in 
the Philippines. Tropics generally. 
8. AERUA Forskal 
Woolly herbs or undershrubs, sometimes climbing. Leaves alternate or 
opposite. Flowers small in solitary or panicled spikes or in sessile 
axillary heads. Sepals 4 or 5, short, thin, all or only the inner ones 
woolly. Stamens 4 or 5, connate below, with interposed linear staminodes; 
anthers 2-celled. Fruit an indehiscent or circumsciss utricle. 
Species about 10 in tropical Asia, Malaya, and Africa, 2 in the Phil- 
ippines. - 
1. A. LANATA (L.) Juss. 
An ascending or prostrate densely grayish-pubescent herb, the stems 
0.2 to 0.8 m in length, simple or branched. Leaves alternate, petioled, 
elliptic to orbicular or obovate, obtuse, 1 to 3.5 cm long. Spikes numerous, 
white, axillary, solitary or crowded in the axils, densely flowered, 1 cm 
long or less, the flowers green and white, 2 mm in diameter. (FI. Filip. 
pl. 354.) 
In open dry lands, common locally, fi. all the year; throughout the 
Philippines at low altitudes, undoubtedly introduced. Africa, India, and 
Malaya. 
9. ACHYRANTHES Linnaeus 
Coarse herbs with opposite leaves, the flowers in simple or panicled 
spikes, deflexed immediately after opening, the bracts and bracteoles 
spinescent. Sepals 4 or 5, the filaments connate at the base, the stami- 
