880 cxxviii. GNETACEiE (Pearson). [Ephedra. 



Stapf, Die Arten der Gattung Ephedra (1889) 51, t. ii. xi. figs. 

 1-7. 



Nile Land. Nubia: hills on the coast about 21° North Latitude, Bent! 

 Somaliland : Ahl Mountains, 5000 ft., Hildebrandt, 887 ! 



Also in dry and desert regions of Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Egypt and the 

 Mediterranean coast westwards to the Cyrenaica. 



2. GNETUM, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PL iii. 419. 



Usually dioecious. Florets unisexual. Male florets : Envelope of 2 

 median connate scales, tubular or the posterior lobe overlapping in 

 bud; anthers 2 or 1, sessile on the summit of a central column ; 

 pollen spherical. Female florets (perfect) : utricle a close-fitting 

 envelope contracted at the mouth, at length differentiated into a 

 hard stony inner layer and a more or less fleshy and variously 

 coloured outer layer, closely investing the seed ; ovule with an 

 integument and an aril ; integument produced into a straight 

 micropylar tube exserted through the orifices of the aril and 

 utricle, truncate, toothed or fimbriate at the summit. Female 

 florets (imperfect) : like the perfect florets but without an aril, 

 usually barren. Seed radially symmetrical ; embryo developing 

 in the fallen seed (? always) ; endosperm copious. — Large-leaved 

 evergreen loosely twining lianes, or erect trees or shrubs with 

 long smooth internodes and, in the African species, swollen 

 nodes. Leaves opposite, petioled, net-veined. Spike with crowded 

 or more distant nodes, terminating in a barren segment or a 

 perfect or an imperfect female floret ; bisexual, bearing at each 

 node an upper whorl of about 8 perfect female florets and a lower 

 whorl of about 15 male florets ; or pseudobisexual, bearing at each 

 node an upper whorl of about 8 imperfect (rarely 1 or more perfect) 

 female florets and 4 or more basipetally developing and alternating 

 whorls of male florets ; or male, resembling the last but without 

 female florets ; or female, with a single whorl of 8 or 9 perfect female 

 florets at each node ; florets in each case more or less surrounded by 

 jointed hairs or ramenta, the whole subtended by an entire or 2- 

 toothed cupule. 



Species 15-30, in the tropical forest regions of both hemispheres. Two 

 species in West Africa. 



Intemode of male spike of the same diameter through- 

 out its length, slender in dried (or old) specimens ; 

 staminal column exserted from the mouth of the 

 envelope. Leaves commonly less than 2 in. broad 1. 6'. africmnnm. 



Internode of the male spike in the fresh condition 

 much thicker at the base than higher up : staminal 

 column hardly exserted from the mouth of the en- 

 velope. Leaves commonly more than 2 in. broad 2. G. hucholzianum. 



1. G. africanum, Wdw. in Trans. Linn. Soc. xxvii. 73. A dioecious 

 (Wehvitsch) liane with twining stem, remotely branched, somewhat 



