Psammotropha.] lxvii. FicoiDEiE (oliver). 593 



10. PSAMMOTROPHA, E. et Z. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. 



i. 858. 



Flowers minute, hermaphrodite. Sepals 5, midrib herbaceous, broadly 

 white-margined. Petals 0. Stamens 5. Ovary 3-5-gonous, 3-5- 

 celled; styles connate below or free, as many as cells; " ovules soli- 

 tary, ascending"." Capsule subglobose, 3-5-gonous, loculicidnlly 5- 

 valved ; cells 1-seeded, seeds globose granulate. — Perennial somewhat 

 rigid herbs, with a dense tuft of linear radical leaves and decumbent 

 slender branches, with pseudo-vertieillate leaves at the nodes. Stipules 

 0. Flowers greenish, in small glomerules at the nodes, sessile or 

 pedicellate. 



A small genus, exclusively Cape, with this exception. 



1. P. myriantha, Sond. in Harv. et Sond. Fl. Cap. i. 147 ; var. 

 huillensis, Welw. mss. Persistent stem much thickened, wholly con- 

 cealed by the densely tufted, narrow-linear l'-nerved glabrous, shortly 

 aristate radical leaves, 1 in. long more or less. Flowering branches 

 decumbent or ascending, 6-15 in. long, numerous in older specimens, 

 glabrous, often reddish, with the lower internodes 1—2 in. Cauline 

 leaves linear, rather fleshy, glaucous or pruinose, with or without a 

 short awn, J-J in. long. Flowers ^-J in. diameter in 3-5-flowered 

 sessile umbels from all the upper nodes, forming" an interrupted leafy 

 spiciform inflorescence ; pedicels equalling the flower. Styles 5, united 

 below, at length radiate-divaricate above. 



Lower Guinea. Huilla, Angola, Dr. Welwitsch ! 



Also south of the Tropic, where the radical leaves reach twice the length, and the 

 plant would seem more erect in habit. 



11. GISEKIA, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant, i. 859. 



Flowers hermaphrodite or occasionally polygamous. Sepals normall} r 

 5, equal, broadly elliptical obovate orrotundate. Petals 0. Stamens 5- 

 15, hypogynous, free or cohering shortly in phalanges. Carpels usually 

 5, distinct, sessile, 1-celled, 1-ovulate; style short, recurved, longi- 

 tudinally stigmatose. Achenes with a thin papillose-tubercled peri- 

 carp ; seed vertical, more or less compressed. — Diffuse annual herbs. 

 Leaves subopposite, rather fleshy, linear to oblanceolate, entire, 

 abounding in raphidian cells ; exstipulate. Flowers small/ subsessile 

 or pedicellate in sessile fascicles at the nodes or pedunculate umbels. 



A small genus of Africa, India, and intermediate region. 



Flowers 5-androus. 



Cymes usually nearly sessile at the nodes ; pedicels short . 1.0. pharnaceoides. 



Cymes on slender peduncles, at length panicled .... 2. G. rubella. 



Flowers 8-20-androus 3. O. Miltus. 



1. G. pharnaceoides, Linn.; DC. Prod. xiii. pt. 2, 27. A diffuse 

 decumbent or prostrate annual, wholly glabrous, with slender dichoto- 



