44 XI, LILIACEA. [Wotosceptrum 
with tuberous root, tuber conical, descending or vertical, bearing 
on all sides thick fleshy fibres 1 to 14 ft. long. Leaves 9 ft. long, 
linear, sheathing at the base, with a winged keel, long-acuminate, 
young ones 3 ft. erect, full grown on the flowering-plant, hanging limply 
or arcuately spreading. Scape radical, central, nearly 8 ft. high, almost 
an inch thick, juicy and fleshy, cylindrical, erect, naked, bracteate a 
little below the spike, bracts white scarious with a broad base and 
elongated linear very acuminate apex, the upper ones short. Flowers 
in a very dense spike, with a very short stalk, greenish in bud, spike 
cylindrico-conical, apex subobtuse. Open flowers probably reddish 
and nodding, but only buds and berries were seen. Ovary in the bud 
ovate-spherical, trigonous, style filiform with a slightly thickened 
stigmatic apex. In the bud condition the spikes are eaten like 
Asparagus by the blacks. Rocky thickets with deep grass and deep- 
grassed marshy places on the presidium between Luxillo and Catete, 
May 1857. Native name Tongo. Nos. 3733, 3734. Radical leaf 
9 ft., stem 12 ft, high. In leaf Luxillo, Jan. 1857. No. 3735. 
2. N. benguellense Benth., /.c.; Durand & Schinz, Jc. 
Kniphofia benguellensis Welw. ex Baker, /.c. 
Huiitia.—aA fine herb 3 to 5 ft. high, giving forth a tuft of leaves 
from a thick densely fibrous rhizome ; from the centre rises an erect 
scape which scarcely overtops the leaves. Jueaves lanceolate-linear, 
very long-acuminate, channelled, keeled, subrigid, erecto-patent. 
Flowers bright yellow, bract ovate, white, membranous-scarious, 
Perianth subsessile, campanulately expanded almost from the base, 
lobes ovate spreading. Stamens 6 exserted, alternate ones a little 
shorter, filaments compressed white, anthers yellow. Ovary 3-locular. 
Style terminal, filiform, gradually passing into an obsoletely papillose 
stigma, at first bent, then erect. Capsule almost globose, very shortly 
stalked, dull yellowish, cartilaginous, shiny. Seeds in two series, 
horizontal, angular, testa dull-coloured. Marshes by streams growing 
with Aroides hastatum and Epilobium. Flowers Dec., Jan. In fl. and 
fr. Jan. 1860. No. 3736. Plentiful in marshy places on islands near 
Lopollo, Jan. 1860. Cou. Carp. 8. 
4, ALOE L.; Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. iii. p. 776. 
1. A. angolensis Baker in Trans. Linn. Soe. ser. 2. i. p. 263 
(1878), in Journ. Linn. Soc. xviii, p. 162; Durand & Schinz, 
Consp. Fl. Afr. v. p. 303. 
Barra DO Benco.—Subacaulescent but a fine plant, and the most 
robust of all the species except the arborescent. Leaves rosulate, sub- 
erect, 2 ft. long, lanceolate, not spotted beneath, with a copious 
yellowish resin, very juicy and fleshy, glaucous; apex subobtuse, 
toothed and crested, twisted to the left; margin distantly aculeate 
(not sinuate-aculeate) ; base amplexicaul; back not punctate nor 
carinate, marked with a blunt line not everywhere to be seen and 
never well-developed. Flowers sulphur-yellow, shortly pedicelled, 
pendulous, in pyramidal racemes. Scape lateral, 3 ft. long, as thick 
as a finger, straight, shining green, with a reddish bloom, compressed 
at the base, and distantly aculeate on the two edges, naked, gradually 
passing above into a cylindrical form, longitudinally striate, sometimes 
simple, sometimes with 1 to 3 branches, branches spreading, racemose. 
Bracts below the racemes broadly ovate-acuminate, among the flowers 
elongate-ovate, scarious, white, with dark lines, erect, margin white 
membranous. Mutollo, 29 July 1858. No. 3728. 
