532 LXXI. COMPOSITA, [ Vernonia 
Var. ambacensis. 
A perennial herb; rootstock thick, woody, several-headed, 
more or less woolly about the apex; leaves radical, oblanceolate, 
rounded or shortly pointed at the apex, wedgeshaped to an 
attenuate shortly petiolate base, membranous, glabrous, erect, 
entire or with a few minute or distant teeth, 3 to 7 in. long 
(including the petiole) by = to 1} in. broad; scapes numerous, 
rather thick, erect or ascending, glabrous, 10 to 18 in. high; 
capitula thick, cylindrical-oblong, homogamous, about 1} in. in 
diameter, many-flowered, solitary; corolla deep-blue, with an 
elongated filiform tube, elongate-campanulate deeply 5-cleft limb, 
and linear-acuminate lobes glandular-bearded outside at the apex ; 
style filiform, thickened and hispid below its division; achene 
(not quite ripe) linear-oblong, angular, subglabrous or sparingly 
hispidulous ; pappus pluriseriate, } in. long, with rigid straight 
hispidulous brown-rufous sete. 
AmpBaca.—In sandy bushy forests largely composed of Cussonia 
angolensis (Welw. Herb. No. 480), near Zamba towards the river 
Lucala, rather rare; fr. and one specimen only in fl. Oct. 1856. 
No. 3882. 
This species apparently belongs to the section Lachnorhiza. 
32. V. precox Welw. ex O. Hoffm., /.c., p. 16. 
V. violacea Klatt in Ann. Nat. Hofmus. vii. p. 99 (1892); non 
O. & H. (1873). 
GoLtunco Aro.—A. herb, 2 to 24 ft. or sometimes only a foot high; 
rootstock thick, fleshy, deformed, crowded with long fibres, perennial ; 
stem erect, leafy below ; leaves appearing mostly after the flowers ; 
flowers violet-purple or red; corollas tubular, 5-cleft. In elevated 
bushy pastures in Sobato Bumba, on the herbaceous declivities of 
Alta Queta, rather rare; fl. and fr., the leaves destroyed by fire, Oct. 
1855 ; in similar places after the burnings, fl. and fr. end of August 
1855 ; in thin secondary thickets grown up after the burnings, fl. and 
fr. end of Sept. 1855. No. 3330. 
33. V. chthonocephala O. Hoffm., l.c., p. 17. 
Gotunco ALtro.—A dwarf perennial herb, with the habit of 
Saussurea pygmea Spr. ; rootstock woody, many-headed ; stems very 
short, beset with whitish-rufous woolly hairs ; flowers purplish verging 
on violet-blue, produced in spring before the leaves soon after the 
burning of the plains and presaging the coming rains; capitula 
cylindric-ovoid, thick, singly on short scapes. On elevated rather dry 
slopes amongst short herbage near the summit of the mountains of 
Serra do Alto Queta, at Carengue ; seen nowhere else; fl. August 
to Jan. 1855-7. In consequence of the burning of the country by 
hunters and shepherds, the leaves of this plant are rather rarely found. 
No. 3886. 
34. V. vaginata O. Hoffm., /.c., p. 14. 
Hviiia.—A perennial herb, with several stems, ascending, 1 to 
1} ft. high, clothed in all parts with a dense white felt ; corolla-lobes 
three times as long as the tube ; anthers with long tails; style cylin- 
drical, thickened and patently pilose at its bifurcation ; the branches 
