Avicennia. 513 
1140. Avicennia officinalis L. Spec. Plant. ed. I (1753), p.110. 
— Boiss. Flor. Or. IV, p.536. — Aschers.-Schweinf. Ill. Flor. dEg., 
p. 125 no.813. — A small tree, the branches inflorescence and 
under side of the leaves white or silvery with a very close tomentum, 
more silky on the flowers, the upper side. of the leaves usually 
glabrous when full-grown, black and shining when dry Leaves coria- 
ceous, usually lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 5—6 cm long, acute and 
contracted into a petiole, but varying to elliptical or obovate, and very 
obtuse. Cymes contracted into small heads on rigid angular peduncles, 
which are often 2 together in the upper axils or several in a small 
terminal leafy thyrsus. Bracts shorter than the sepals. Sepals 
orbicular or broadly ovate, concave, hirsute, and ciliate, about 
21/, mm long. Corolla-tube shorter than the sepals, lobes ovate, 
rather longer than the tube, the upper inner one rather larger than 
the others. Ovary very hairy. — Flow. January. 
R. From the island of Qesysum near Ras-el-Ginema southward. 
Local ame: shora. 
Also known from the tropical shores of both hemispheres. 
96. Labiatae. 
Flowers hermaphrodite, irregular. Calyx inferior, gamosepalous, 
persistent, often accrescent; limb usually 5-toothed, sometimes bila- 
biate or 6—10-toothed. Corolla gamopetalous; limb usually bilabiate, 
2 lobes being represented by the upper lip and 3 by the lower one. 
Stamens epipetalous, usually 4, didynamous, sometimes reduced to 2; 
anthers usually 2-celled; cells parallel or divaricate, often confluent. 
Hypogynous disk thick and fleshy. Ovary superior, 4-lobed; style 
produced from the centre of the lobes, forked at the tip. Fruit of 
A nutlets, usually included in the persistent calyx. Seeds solitary 
in the nutlets, erect; albumen scanty or wanting; cotyledons flat or 
convex; radicle short, inferior. — Herbs or shrubs, rarely scandent; 
stems usually 4-angled. Leaves exstipulate, opposite or verticillate 
(very rarely alternate), crenate or entire, sessile or petioled, usually 
simple often, as are the other parts of the plant, furnished with 
glandular dots. Flowers verticillate, the two cymes which form the 
whorl usually congested into umbels; bracts minute or large and 
foliaceous; pedicels often bracteolate. 
A vast family of about 3300 species, spread over every quarter of the 
globe, and readily known from all Sympetals, except Borragineae, by the 
4-lobed ovary and the 4 small nuts resembling naked seeds in the bottom 
of he calyx; and from Borraginaceae by their opposite leaves, the want of the 
fifth stamen, and usually by the more irregular flowers. Most of the species 
