61 
PLATE 75. 
82. ECRYSOLEN GRACILIS Prain in Sc. Mem. Med. Off. India xi. 44 (1898). 
Nalural crder Labiate. 
A slender scandent shrub with cylindric slender branches, puberulous with close- 
set, adpressed, reflexed hairs; leaves ovate-acute, their bases cuneate entire tapering into 
a short petiole 2—5 mm. long, their anterior two-thirds rather coarsely toothed with 
5—8 serrations on each side, membranous, pale-green, above with at first a sparse 
adpressed pubescence at length glabrescent, below puberulous on the midrib and main- 
nerves elsewhere glabrous, secondary nerves 3—4 pairs; flowers small, condensed in 
axillary and terminal spikes 25—4 cm. long, 1 сш. across; bracts hardiy exceeding 
the 155 mm. long pedicels; calyx tubular-campanulate, 4 mm. long, 10-nerved, 5-toothed, 
the two anterior teeth rather exceeding the other three but hardly 2-lipped, glabrous 
within, sparsely puberulous externally, in fruit the teeth erect and the tube slightly 
urceolate; corolla 7 mm. long, tube exserted, annulate within, below the annulus slender 
and straight, gibbous in front above the annulus; the limb 2-lipped, the upper lip erect 
slightly concave and retuse at the tip, the lower longer spreading 3-fid, the side lobeg 
much smaller than the median; stamens 4, didynamous, the lower longer, all ascending 
under the upper lip and all exserted, the anthers ovate-reniform, 1-locular, those of 
the upper stamens rather smaller than the others, the filaments puberulous with 
whitish hairs; dise uniform; ovary substipitate, style subequally 2-fid, lobes acute; 
nutiets (only seen young) smooth towards periphery of pistil, papillose-glandular on their 
upper and mesial aspects. 
Каснім Hirs: Sadon; Prain’s Collector / 
This plant forms the type of a genus that it has seemed to the writer best to 
place tentatively among the Prusiee near Gomphostemma. The anthers appear to be 
l-celled from a very early stage. From its unfortunately not yet having been collected 
in ripe fruit it is not possible to be absolutely certain as to its tribal position. The 
writer’s difficulty in the matter led to his submitting a specimen of the plant, with a 
copy of the description, to Mr. Briquet of Geneva, whose masterly account of the 
natural order Labiate in Engler's Naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien marks him as the greatest 
living authority on this difficult family. Mr. Briquet has very courteously examined the 
specimen and has written the following valuable note on the plant :— 
“Ав concerns the Eurysolen I have examined the specimen you sent to me closely and quite 
agrce w.th you that it cannot be placed in any of the genera known up to date. 
“T am very puzzled as to its place and must frankly confess that I do not dare to place it 
precisely in any of the tribes without knowing the ripe fruit. The nutlets are too young to allow 
saying if the fruit will be partite or only 4-lobed, viz:—if the surface of insertion will be basilar 
and small or lateral and larger. They are too young also to allow saying if the pericarp will be thick 
and more or less fleshy, or thin and dry. If we had a dry (often thick) pericarp with lateral 
surface of insertion we should have to do with a genus of Ajugoidew-Ajugee. In that tribe we have 
plants with 1-celled anthers, looking exactly like the anthers of your specimen. These are, without 
doubt, due to the fusion of the two cells. This manner of speaking has a purely phylogenetic 
meaning, for in many instances the cells appear coherent from the beginning! The way in which 
the anther rests on the top of the filament (in the middle instead of the top of the anther) is very 
decisive in this respect. Among the Ajugee your genus would be T distinguished by the 
organisation of the corolla and of the androecium. 
