xlvi BOTANY OF SOCOTRA. 



at Aden and reaching Scindh, and the fourth occurs in Scindh and Beloochistan. 

 Camptoloma villosa is an endemic annual, and its occurrence in Socotra has 

 great value, from a geographical point of view, as the only other species of the 

 genus, C. rotundifolia, is found at Elephant Bay, in south Africa. That 

 Schiveinfurthia pedicellata is only known elsewhere at Aden, and that Linaria 

 hastata is entirely Abyssinian, are facts of distribution which swell the number 

 of noteworthy points in this family. 



Capparideae and Burseraceae have an equally strong muster in Socotra. All 

 the Burseraceae belong to the genera Boswellia and Balsamodendron. Of the 

 eleven species recorded, two of Boswellia and two of Balsamodendron are 

 unfortunately too imperfectly represented in our collection to admit of 

 determination, and of the others, three are endemic species of Boswellia, and a 

 like number are claimed by Balsamodendron. This, especially in the case of 

 Boswellia, is a remarkable development, and well entitles Socotra to be ranked 

 as a portion of the incense-country of the East. It is quite probable that the 

 peculiar character of the incense-trees of Socotra may be to some extent lessened 

 by the discovery of the species on the adjacent mainland of Africa and Asia. 



Amarantaceae, the next most numerously represented order, I only mention 

 to bring out the fact that one of the Socotran endemic species, Aerua microphylla, 

 was described so long ago as 1849, by Moquin-Tandon, in De Candolle's 

 Prodromus, from " shores of the Ked Sea," as it was in the collection sent 

 by Mr Nimmo to Sir William Hooker (see Preface, page xvi). 



Tiliaceae and Cucurbitaceae, with nine species each, demand attention to some 

 of their features. The heterophylly in foliage-leaves, which is so marked a feature 

 in the Mascarene flora, is not conspicuous in that of Socotra, but in the endemic 

 tiliaceous Grewia bilocularis adventitious twigs have small cordate-deltoid hairy 

 leaves with purple margins, quite different from the usual adult form of leaf, 

 and the plant is therefore heterophyllous. Corchorus erodioides is another 

 endemic tiliaceous species, which may be noted in passing for its difference in 

 habit from the generic type, for a slightly diverse form of its leaves, and the 

 recurving of the peduncles after flowering and consequent burying of the fruit. 

 Cucurbitaceae possesses one of the most striking plants in the flora. It is the tree- 

 cucurbit with thickly gouty stems, which I have named Dendrosicyos socotrana, 

 the camhane, gamhen, or gamha of the inhabitants. It is quite a unique plant 

 in the family. "We have not, unfortunately, material for a full analysis of the 

 plant, and fruit and seeds are still unknown. The occurrence of an endemic 

 species of Eureiandra is another fact which gives interest to this order, for only 

 two other species are known — one from Angola and one from central Africa. 



Of Solanaceae and Liliaceae, which have an equal number of species, eight, in 

 Socotra, I need only notice the latter here. I have previously mentioned reasons 

 for the small number of petaloid monocotyledonous plants we have from Socotra, 



