393 
accept Miiller’s ike has merged this plant i in Miiller’s var. 
angustifolia, This treatment is rather less natural than that of Miiller 
because, as will es Mitre presently, it is var. angustifolia, Miill. 
Arg., and not, as Miiller supposed, the variety which Miiller termed 
¥ gentina, which is the true C. Alaternoides of Linna aeus, Pax has 
laternoides as the type of a distinct section, Alater- 
hie which by his definition is only separable from another 
section, Revolutae, also proposed by him, owing to the circumstance 
that in the Alaternoideae the leaves bear stomata on both surfaces, 
whereas in the Revolutae the leaves bear stomata only on the under 
surface. It so happens, however, that in laxa the stomata are 
almost always confined to the lower surface of the leaves only, and 
if this character, which is of interest owing to its possible oeco- 
logical significance, had all the taxonomic value which Pax has 
assigned to it, then C. dara, so far from being treated as ‘a form of 
a variety ’ of C. Alaternoides, might be treated as a distinct species 
belonging to another section. The writer is not disposed to consider 
the character afforded by the distribution of the stomata as one of 
sufficient importance to justify the establishment of sections, but 
when, as in the present instance, it is found associated with certain 
other edi ibti mor pe ——— we are perhaps justified 
in regarding C. laxa, Iickl., at least tentatively, as a distinct species. 
But the natural aghatitnoahl ‘of these various nearly allied Cluytias 
can only be settled in the field by one or other of the competent 
local botanists now at work in South Biica: 
luytia africana, Poir. Encye. mo Suppl. ii. 302 [Clutia], 
syn. Willd. excl. (1810) ; suffrutex ad 60 em. altus ; caules erassi, 
iignosi, saepius copiose ramosi ; men ascendentes, glabri; folia 
sessilia, crasse coriacea, opaca, oblongo-obovata, obtusa apice 
mucronulata, basi cuneata rarius rotundata rarissime ee 
cordata, margine scabridula parum revoluta, 4—4°5 longa, 
1:2-1°8 cm. lata, utrinque glaberrima, hebetia, sides ™ unnea ; 
internodia 5-10 mm. longa ; flores dioici, pallide lutei, utriusque 
sexus phone pedicellati ; “pedicelli gla abri, 5 mm. longi, maris 
shia, basi lntideiln 3-loba aucta ; petala his obovata, cuneatim 
unguiculata, asi 2-glandulosa ; ovarii rudimentum turbinatum, 
rum ; sepala feminei elliptico-lanceolata, ea maris superantia, 
1042, partim et quoad syn. Comm. tantum (1753) et ibid. ed. 2, 1475, 
ie et quoad syn. Comm. bevnets (1763); Lamk Encyc. Meth. ii. 
54, partim et quoad syn. Comm. tantum (17886) ; Thunb. Prodr. 
Cup: 53, pro parte maxima (1794), et Fi. be ed. Schult. 270, pro 
parte maxima (1823) ; E. Mey. in Drege, Zwei Pfl. tories 174, 
oad a et d tantum (1843) ; Krauss in Pitre, XXVili, 82 (18 45). 
bs daphnoides, Willd. in Hort. Berol. 62, excl. t. 52 (ante 1805), et 
; Fk iv. 2, 880, quoad syn. Comm. tantum (1805); nec Lamk 
. Alaternoides, var. major, Krauss lc, (1845); Mull. Arg. in DC 
Prod. eve 2;1047: G 866) ; Pax in Engl. Pflanzenr.—Euph 
bmi 68, pro parte maxima (1911). C. Alaternoides, a latifolia, 
in Rénnaca, xxiii, 127, partim (1850) ; Mall, Arg. le. (1866). 
