Barbeya.] cxxiiia. barbeyace^e (Rendle). 15 



Sepals united only at the base, slightly imbricate, accrescent. 

 Staminodes absent. Ovary superior, of one carpel, shortly stalked, 

 1-celled ; ovule solitary, pendulous from just below the apex of the 

 cell, anatropous, apparently with a single integument ; style short, 

 terminal, expanding into a flattened linear-oblong stigma, papillose 

 on the ventral face. Fruit shortly stalked, dry, indehiscent, ellipsoid ; 

 pericarp thinly leathery. Seed with a membranous testa conforming 

 to the pericarp, and a longitudinal dorsal raphe ; embryo straight ; 

 cotyledons equal, flattened face to face, fleshy, oily ; radicle short, 

 superior ; plumule very small. — A tree ; leaves shortly stalked, 

 opposite-decussate, simple, entire, somewhat leathery, penninerved, 

 exstipulate. Flowers small, in axillary, generally ebracteate cymes. 



A single genus, Barbeya, with one species, in the middle and upper regions 

 of the mountains of Arabia Felix, and North Abyssinia. 



1. BARBEYA, Schweinf. 



1. B. oleoides, Schweinf. in Malpighia, v. 332, tt. 24-25. A small 

 tree, 17-26 ft. high, with a trunk 10 in. in diam., bark thick, dull red ; 

 branches slender, somewhat pendulous, greyish brown, young shoots 

 bearing a dense whitish pubescence which becomes ferruginous 

 towards the tips. Leaves distichous through twisting of the inter- 

 nodes, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, apex acute, apiculate, some- 

 times cuspidate, base blunt to rounded, margin slightly revolute, 

 1-2^ in. long, 3-7 lin. wide, green, glabrous and somewhat polished 

 above, clothed beneath with a grey-white tomentum which is rufescent 

 in the young leaf ; midrib prominent beneath ; veins 6-7 on each 

 side, spreading, obscure. Male flowers in small few-flowered sub- 

 sessile cymes about J in. long and densely ferruginously pubescent ; 

 pedicel 1 J-2J lin. long ; perianth divided for three-quarters of its 

 length or more, IJ lin. long ; segments 3-4, ovate or elliptic, 3- 

 nerved ; female flowers generally in sessile simple 3-flowered cymes ; 

 pedicels slender, 3J-4 lin. long, densely pubescent like the back of 

 the perianth ; segments 3-4, as long as the pedicel, narrowly oval 

 or oval-oblong, 3-nerved and reticulately veined on the inner face. 

 Ovary 1 lin. long ; stigma equal to or exceeding the ovary in length. 

 Sepals in fruit thinly membranous, oblong-elliptic, delicately veined, 

 glabrescent, 5-8 lin. long. Fruit glabrous, somewhat antero-post- 

 eriorly compressed, apex obliquely acute, 4-4J lin. long, with a 

 dorsal line and a well-marked ventral suture. — Schweinf. in Bull. 

 Herb. Boiss. iv. App. ii. 117 ; Engl, in Engl. & Prantl, Pflanz- 

 enfam. Nachtr. zu ii.-iv. 119 : Almagia in Ann. R. Istit. Bot. 

 Roma, viii. 119 ; Fiori, Boschi e Piaut. Legn. Eritrea, 112. 



Nile Land. Eritrea : various localities, Schweinfurth, 171, 172 ! G21, 622 ! 

 1189! 1190! 1671! 2157! Pappi, 183, 3750; Terracciano d: Pappi, 224, 

 380, 645, 744, 1743. 



Also in Arabia. 



