58 ERIOCAULES (Brown). 
Il. MESANTHEMOM, Karnicke. 
branches simple and filiform, or more or less enlarged and ramified 
near their apex, without alternating appendages. 
Marsh herbs, stemless, or with a more or less elongating and rooting stem; 
leaves broadly linear, in a dense tult; scapes one-headed, longer than 
leaves; heads monescious, with a campanulate involuere, flat-topped or, 
perhaps, at length convex or hemispherical; flowering bracts with a 
capillary stalk and a clavate head. Other characters as for the Order. 
ISTRI Species 3, natives of Tropical Africa and Madagascar, one 
extending within the limits of the South African Flora 
1. M. radicans (Kérnicke in Linnea, xxvii. 573); leaves 12-16 
in. long, 1-2 in. broad, linear, tapering to an obtuse point, softly 
pubescent on both sides; scapes 1-21 ft. long scarcely 1 lin. thick, 
terete, striate, pubescent ; basal sheaths 8—9 in. long, softly pubescent ; 
apex obliquely produced into a point about 12 in. long; heads abou 
pubescent, the inner ones a little longer and more pointed than the 
free claws, hairy on the outside just above the claws, ciliate at the 
slightly trifid apex, whitish with 3 linear brownish glands near the 
top of the tube within ; ovary acutely triquetrous, glabrous ; style 
long with 3 filiform branches, or the branches more or less enlarg 
and ramified near their apex ; male flowers with pedicels 1 lin. long, 
Ve 3 
3 lin, broad, longer than the corolla, oblong, obtuse or subtruncate, 
and shortly ciliate at the apex, hyaline, whitish ; stipes between the 
calyx and corolla about + lin. long; corolla * lin 
Hook, Niger Fl. 547 ; Steud. Synops. Glum. ii, 27 3. E. giganteum, 
j 73. E. guineense, Steud. 
Western Region : South of the Tropic, Curror ! 
