398 
botanist when the contrast in question is made. As to this latter 
problem, the difficulty is nowhere better stated than it has been by 
the late Professor Harvey in a half-pathetic note on a sheet of 
C. africana of his own collecting :—“ If there be two there are 
half a dozen species of Cluytia here. A very variable plant or 
group.” The writer is satisfied that Burchell’s “ C. myrtifolia” 
is very distinct from and should never have been confounded with 
C. africana, or C. rubricaulis, or C. lazxa, or C. pterogona, and it 
would not surprise him greatly to learn that C. myrtifolia, Burch., 
is equally distinct from the true C. Alaternoides. But apart from 
their great difference in size, the distinguishing features elude him, 
and it must be left to South African botanists to say whether the 
judgment formed by Burchell in the field is really so_ little 
deserving of consideration as the action taken by Meyer, Sonder, 
Miiller and Pax would suggest. 
5 mm. longa, 2 mm. lata, utrinque glaberrima, glauca ; internodia 
teretia, brevissima ; flores dioici, albi, pedicellati, maris in 
glomerulas paucifloras dispositi, feminei solitarii ; pedicelli glabri ; 
sepala maris obovata, obtusa, glandula basali 3-loba aucta ; petala 
late obovata, cuneatim unguiculata, basi 2-glandulosa ; ovarii rudi- 
mentum turbinatum, glabrum ; sepala feminei elliptico-lanceolata, 
glandula basali 3-loba aucta ; petala oblongo-obovata, eglandulosa ; 
ovarium glabrum ; styli liberi, 2-fidi; capsula subglobosa, 4 mm. 
ata ; semina nigra, nitentia. Sond. in Linnaea, xxiii. 125 [nomen] 
ret Pax in Engl. Pflanzenr.—Euphorb. Cluyt. 83 [nomen] 
1911). 
Western Region: Little Namaqualand ; Khamiesberg, between 
Pedro’s Kloof and Leliefontein, Drége, a ; 3030; near the summit 
of Beacon Hill, Pearson, 6710 partly; near stream in Groene 
Kloof, Pearson, 6617. 
Sonder has suggested that this species, which has never been 
roperly described, may be only a form of C. brevifolia, Sond. 
his is not the case; C. brevifolia is nearly allied to C. polifolia 
and has by Miiller been treated as a variety of C. polifolia, whereas 
C. imbricata, as i, Meyer himself has indicated, is so nearly allied 
to C. rubricaulis, Eckl., that one form of the latter was issued by 
Meyer as C. imbricata, b. To Baillon (Adansonia, iii. 153) the 
suggestion of Sonder appeared so satisfactory that he actually 
d C. imbricata to C. brevifolia, It is not convenient to follow 
Baillon in this action because C. brevifolia is one of the forms with 
stomata on the under side of the leaf only, whereas both of the plants 
issued by E. Meyer as C. imbricata have stomata on both sides of 
their leaves. The main difference between the two plants issued 
by E. Meyer as C. imbricata, a and C. imbricata, b respectively, lies 
in the fact that the leaf-edges in ‘a’ are revolute, in ‘b’ are quite flat 
But it has to be kept in mind that these two plants issued as ‘a’ 
and ‘b” were both collected by Drége at the same time and in the 
