249 



Agriophyllum minus F. & M. 



A strongly branched, thorny-leaved sand-desert plant 

 which may attain a height of about 30 centimetres: fig. 72 

 illustrates a small specimen. The leaves are up to 3 cm. 

 long, flat with stellate hairs, hard in texture, parallel-veined 

 and traversed by parallel ribs and furrows, and terminate 

 in a spine. The lower ones are lanceolate, but higher up 

 they become narrower. The leaf-axils bear short-shoots with 



Fig. 71. Horaninowia ulicina. A, Transverse section of leaf; N, Vein. 



.B, Detail of A. C, Part of transverse section of stem. Sclerenchyma black, 



collenchyma dotted, palisade tissue shaded. (B, X 203; A and C, X 53). 



leaves which are quite narrow, acicular and ending in a 

 straw-coloured spine. The flat leaves die away in the course 

 of summer, while the short-shoots remain green. 



The structure of the isolateral leaf will be seen from 

 fig. 73. The superficial ribs consist of bands of sclerenchyma. 

 There are one or two layers of palisade cells on each side, and 

 translucent cells with numerous crystal-cells in the middle. 



The stem shows bands of collenchyma alternating with 



