580 LXXI. COMPOSITA. | Melanthera 
and fr. middle of May 1856. No. 3552. Scandent; flowers golden- 
yellow. Bango, Queta ; fl. and fr. June 1856. No. 3553. The local 
name “ N-garacaca”’ is applied to this and also to other species. 
The following No. has smaller capitula (about } in. long) and 
petioles rather shorter (} to 1} in. long) than the two previous :— 
Gotunco Auttro.—A herb 4 to 5 ft. high ; stem more or less flexuous, 
climbing among shrubs. In dense thickets near stream Quibélo among 
the mountains of Queta, sparingly ; fl. 19 March 1856. No. 3549. 
O. Kunize, l.c., p. 305, has reduced this genus to Amellus P. Br. 
(1756), non L. (1759); but P. Browne’s plant, though considered 
congeneric by R. Brown in Trans. Linn, Soc. xii. part 1, p. 117 (1817), 
is not included in Melanthera as now limited. The person after 
whom the above species was named is (notwithstanding the spelling) 
R. Brown and not P. Browne. 
2. M. varians Hiern, sp. n. 
An erect or ascending or subscandent herb, 2 to 4 ft. high, 
annual, scabrid; stems erect or prostrate or almost climbing, 
more or less branched ; branches opposite, rather slender, furrowed, 
more or less angular, rough, strigulose towards the apex; leaves 
ovate or oval-ovate, opposite, pointed or shortly acuminate at the 
apex, obtuse or abruptly narrowed at the base, more or less 
dentate, sometimes hastate-lobulate near the base, rigidly 
membranous, rough with whitish strigulose hairs which leave on 
the surface rough bases, 3 to 34 in. long by } to 3 in. broad; 
petioles ranging up to nearly an inch long; capitula heterogamous, 
radiate, homochromous, hemispherical, } to 4 in. long, on unequal 
rather slender hispidulous peduncles ranging up to 3 in., sub- 
solitary or paniculate, arranged in open somewhat leafy terminal 
corymbose or rounded cymes; involucral scales biseriate, free to 
the base; the outer ovate with a green lanceolate upper part, 
strigulose on the back, imbricate at the base, nearly flat, about 
1 in. long; the inner ones subscarious, whitish and oblong below, 
substramineous ovate and ciliolate above, about as long as the 
outer ones, concave and partly embracing the ray-florets; flowers 
yellow ; ray-florets uniseriate, ligulate, female, fertile; the ligule 
deep-yellow, exceedingly variable in size; the ovary subcom- 
pressed but somewhat trigonous, slightly hairy on the angles, 
widening a little upwards, with a shortly hairy ring around the 
apex and 3 unequal scabrid deciduous ariste at the top of the 
angles the longest of which is as long as the ovary; disk-florets 
pluriseriate, } in. long, tubular, regular, with the ovary similar 
to that of a ray-floret but subglabrous and usually more com- 
pressed and with 2 or 3 ariste all but 1 very caducous, 
embraced by the scales of the receptacle which are similar to the 
inner involucral scales marked with several parallel lines and 
at length become flatter ; anthers fuscous, ecaudate, obtuse at 
the base, appendaged at the apex; achenes dusky, roundedly 
trigonous but slightly compressed, thicker upwards, minutely 
dotted, subtruncate, nearly glabrate ; pappus obsolete or with the 
remains of a whitish ring around the top. 
