242 AN UNDESCUIBED SENECIO FROM SOUTH AFRICA. 
South African collections in possession of my institution, from the 
German naturalists and travellers Ecklon, Zeyher, Drege, Pappe, and 
Gueinzius. 
Senecio is not merely more widely distributed over the globe than 
any other existing genus, from the polar to the equinoctial regions of 
both hemispheres (though almost absent in North Australia), but it em- 
braces more species than any other,— nearly a thousand being on 
record, some, however, but ill-defined. The genus almost as rich in 
species, and almost as extensively diffused, is Solauum, and then seem- 
ingly follow Panicum, Carex, and Euphorbia, though in Australia 
Acacia largely surpasses all others. The species of Senecio, as repre- 
sentatives from almost every part of the globe, become thus of the 
greatest possible interest, and are certain to be always among the first 
which come under the notice of any phytographical observer. The 
Groundsels, I may remark, though generally of the more humble forms 
of vegetation, present, in a recently discovered species from the Chat- 
ham Islands {Senecio Ilnntii : • Vegetation of the Chatham Islands,' 
3) 
Bedfordii 
the only truly arborescent species of the globe. 
In transmitting the plant to which this has special reference, the 
discoverer justly observes " its nearest affinity to be with Senecio 
ifolius 
leaves. 
ifolit' 
but 
that plant has discoid capitula and a corymbose-paniculate inflores- 
cence." I cannot but fully concur in these remarks, and it will be 
with these two congeners that Mr. M'Owan's Senecio must rank 
under the appropriate name chosen by that gentleman. It may, ow- 
ever, be that occasionally monocephalous varieties of S. paucifouus a 
S. oxyrifolius are formed ; and again, forms of S. tropceolifolius wit 
more than one capitulum, and thus the affinity between these evident y 
closely-allied plants would be nearer still. 
Senecio tropaolifo litis, M'Owan.— Herbaceous, glabrous; leaves 
small, peltate, cordate-orbicular, or verging into a rhomboid or rena 
form 
few 
long petioles; stem simple, scape like, monocephalous, with very 
distant minute scales; involucre without calycular bracts, un* 
[sic ! Ed.] one, as long as the discal flowers, consisting of abou 
