252 CLiv, ERIOCAULE.E (brown). [Eviocaulon. 



cuspidate-acute, straw- coloured,, thinly bearded with minute white 

 hairs on the apical part. Receptacle pilose. Female flowers subsessile. 

 Sepals 2, equal, | lin. long, \ lin. or rather more in breadth from front 

 to back, spathulate-suborbicular viewed sideways, with a very broad 

 wing-like keel, rather coarsely toothed on the keel and apical part of 

 the sides, with the actual apex produced into a very short bristle-like 

 mucro, straw-coloured, glabrous. Stipes between the sepals and petals 

 very short. Petals 3, equal, much exceeding the sepals, f lin. long, 

 ^-\ lin. broad, cuneately spathulate, very pale yellowish-white, glabrous 

 on both sides, ciliate with white hairs at the apex, two of them furni- 

 shed with a very conspicuous black gland near the apex, the other 

 glandless. Ovary compressed or trigonous, with a bifid or trifid style. 

 Male flowers sessile or subsessile. Sepals 2, free to the base, |-| lin. 

 long, subulate or filiform, pale straw-coloured, glabrous. Stipes between 

 the sepals and petals exceeding the sepals, nearly or quite 1 lin. 

 long, stout, flattened, curved, pale straw-coloured. Petals 3, very 

 unequal ; the larger |-1 lin. long, linear or linear-spathulate, projecting 

 beyond the bracts like a little white plume, the two smaller J-J lin. 

 long, linear, all densely bearded all over the inner face with long white 

 hairs, and furnished with a black gland near the apex, that on the 

 larger petal being very minute or absent. Stamens 6 ; anthers black. 



Upper Guinea. Senegal, Heudelot, 680 ! 



This is closely allied to E. jplumale, N. E. Br., differing in its fewer and very 

 much longer peduncles (which are out of all proportion to the small size of 

 the rosette of leaves), in the entirely straw-coloured flowering-bracts and sepals of 

 the female flowers and rather stouter sepals of the male flowers. The outer flowers 

 of the head are all male, with very long stipes between the sepals and the petals, 

 then come several series of female flowers, and the centre occupied with males which 

 have scarcely any stipes, but the stipes may grow out later, as the only head 

 examined was rather young. This and JE. plumale ai*e remarkably distinct from all 

 the other African species in the very great difference in the form of the sepals of 

 the male aud female flowers, and in the disparity in the number of sepals and petals, 

 for in all the female flowers I have examined I constantly found 2 sepals and 

 3 petals present : occasionally, but rather rarely, a third sepal is present in the male 

 flowers. 



26. E. zambesiense, Ruhland in Engl. Jahrh. xxvii. 75. Stemless. 

 Leaves all radical, 1 J-6 in. long, 1 J-2J lin. broad, linear, flat, obtuse or 

 acute, many-nerved, glabrous. Peduncles numerous, 6-15 in. long, 

 slightly 5-6-ribbed, glabrous ; their basal-sheaths lJ-4 in. long, oblique 

 at the mouth, acute or obtuse, glabrous. Heads 2-3 lin. in diam., 

 globose, greyish-white, monoecious, with the outer flowers female. 

 Involucral-bracts |-1 lin. long, \~\ lin. broad, linear-oblong, obtuse, 

 submembranous, glabrous, light brownish- white. Flowering-bracts 

 1-1 J lin. long, J lin. broad, oblong or subspathulate-obovate, acute or 

 obtuse, concave, entire or very minutely serrulate near the apex, light 

 fuscous, outermost nearly or quite glabrous, inner bearded with white 

 hairs at the apex. Receptacle hairy. Female flowers subsessile or very 

 shortly pedicellate, larger than the male flowers. Sepals about 1 lin. 

 lo^^gj J-i li^- broad from front to back, concave, with a thick very 



