Nescea] LVII, LYTHRACEA, 377 
with 6 valves or folds, many-seeded. In shortly and sparingly bushy 
pastures, in rocky places sometimes flooded in summer, in company 
with AMJuchadoa huillensis Welw. Herb. No. 865, Ascolepis speciosa 
Welw. No. 1674, and Thymeleacew, near Lopollo, at an elevation of 
5000 ft.; fl. and fr. end of Nov., Dec. 1859 and Jan. 1860. No. 2382. A 
perennial herb ; rootstock woody, branched ; stems erect, very slender, 
a foot high ; leaves linear; flowers large, rosy. In hilly bushy places 
near Lopollo ; fl. and fr. Dec. 1859. Coun. Carp. 583. 
10. N. passerinoides Koehne, /.c., p. 338. 
Ammannia passerinoides Welw. ex Hiern, l.c., p. 480. 
Huitia.—A strigulose-canescent plant, agreeing in habit with 
Passerina ; branches virgate ; leaves opposite or alternate, strict ; 
flowers clustered 3 to 7 together in the axils of the leaves, uni- 
bracteolate at the base or the interior ones altogether ebracteolate ; 
flowers constantly yellow ; calyx membranous, tetragonal, 4-lobed ; 
cornua 4, very small or almost obsolete; petals wanting or minute 
and yellow ; stamens usually 4 exserted or 8 of which 4 are included ; 
capsule apparently 1-celled, dehiscing in a circumsciss manner, not 
valvular or rarely with indications of 4 valves ; seeds orbicular-sub- 
angular, convex on one face and concave on the other. At the swampy 
margins of the Lopollo stream, in company with Zantedeschia hastata 
(Welw. Herb. No. 232) and species of Salix, Xyris, and Gladiolus, at 
an elevation of 5500 ft. ; fl. and fr. middle of March 1860, Specimens 
collected during a sally from the fortress, when two of Welwitsch’s 
negroes were killed and five others escaped with him. No. 2336. 
11. N. lythroides Welw. ex Hiern in Oliv. Fl. Trop. Afr. ii. 
p. 471; Koehne in Engl. Bot. Jahrb. iii. p. 338 (1882). 
MossaMEDES.—Habit of Lythrum. In a moist marshy thicket with 
lax herbage near Cavalheiros, in sandy-clayey places not unfrequently 
quite flooded, sparingly ; fi. and fr. 21 Sept. 1859. No. 2335. In 
moist sandy places with lax herbage, near Boca do Rio, at the banks 
of the river Bero ; only one specimen seen ; fl. August and beginning 
of Sept. 1859. Probably a young plant of this species. No. 2384. 
LVIII. ONAGRACEA. 
Nearly all the species of this family hitherto discovered in 
Angola proper are herbaceous or suffrutescent, and belong to the 
genus Jussica; they inhabit swamps or meadows by the sides of 
rivers and streams, and gradually increase in abundance from the 
coast towards the uplands in the interior. The greater part of them 
are inconspicuous herbs, and present but little or none of the 
elegance and beauty of the American members of the family ; but 
they are sufficiently curious and interesting to botanists, especially 
aS commemorating the venerated name of the talented Antoine 
Laurent de Jussieu, the founder of the natural system. Tannic 
acid abounds in these plants and, mixed with the ferruginous 
particles which surround them on the banks of the rivers, pro- 
duces a kind of black muddy deposit, which the Portuguese 
colonists call Jodo preto, and which the natives use for the purpose 
of dyeing black various sorts of the fabric called Mabéla, made 
from the fibre of the Raphia palm. A specimen of this lodo is 
