274 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
erect or ascending, nearly straight or sinuous, or at the lower 
verticil geniculate, at length decumbent, shorter than the leaves, 
ranging up to 5 dm. high, tough, about 3-4 mm. in diameter at 
hat 
the base, triquetrous-terete below, trig 
tapering upwards; inflorescence centripetal, verticillate-racemose, 
imple or rarely a little compound; pedi ostly arra in 
slender, ranging up to 1 : a or rarely up t mm. long, 
those of the female flowers very short, the terminal on tary 
and erect, bracteate at the base; r verticils of the 
monceci Ss lly male, and the lo nes 
ua 
oe a verticil is partly female and partly male; bracts 3, 
broadly ovate, ge em obtuse and slightly thickened at the 
apex, connate at the base or occasionally two of them connate 
higher up, about 6 mm. long; outer segments of the perianth 3, 
broadly nedoe obtusely pointed at the i thickened apex, 
green, foliaceous, conca bricate in the , not bracteolate 
a b comparatively persistent, abou’ ong ; inner 
segments of* th th 3, subrotund, scarcely clawed at the 
base, conspicuous, white, or at the base very slightly yellowish, 
membranous, imbricate in the bud, marked with several slender 
cones aes ee veins from the base diverging towards the 
upper rye ave, fugacious, ranging up to 10-13 mm. long 
and Seca. th cian ey the later flowers of the same sex usually rather 
smaller than the earlier = and those of the female flowers 
rather larger than the contemporaneous male ones; stamens of 
the male flowers numerous, about 30 more or less, straight pale- 
gold in colour, 23-3 mm : ents dilated, somewhat or 
r 
e 
parallel, deep-gold in colour at the outer margin at the time of de- 
hiscence ; pollen copious, pale-gold in colour, the grains 4,—3 mm. 
in diameter, spherical-polyhedral, the facets a polygonal, 
punctulate. Carpels of the female flowers very numerous, crowded 
on the hemispherical receptacle, beaked at the ram about 14 mm. 
long eee the beak, ate or slightly glandular, subcom- 
t e margin ; beak at the time of the flower stout, ¢ rved, suberect, 
about as long as the rest of the young carpel, prin cleft or 
toothed at the obtuse stigmatic apex; ovule solitary, basilar, 
erect ; fruit echinate. 
mong a large number of specimens examined, all the leaves 
were of one and the same pattern, in so far that none were at all 
lobed, but with a single exception, in which case one leaf was un- 
equal at the base, and on the broader side not far from the base 
there was produced a patent-deflected blunt, —— tooth- 
lik a eo i about 9 mm. long, and 6 
he surface of the lower part of the clasping jin some 
itoued scales were observed to occur in several instances; these 
