PHANEROGAMS — PROFESSOR BAYLEY" BALFOUR. 303 



For remarks regarding this species see under the following one, 



8. 0. conglomeratus, Rottb. Descr. et Ic. 21, t. xv. f. 7; Bcklr. in Linnsea 

 xxxv. 543 (excl. fi major); Boiss. Flor. Orient, v. 369 (excl. y arenarius and 

 syn. C. Auckeri, Jaub. et Spach., and C. macrorhizus Nees). 



var. socotranus, Balf. fil. in Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. xii. (1883), 411. 



Culmo rigido erecto vix pollicari subcompresso striato ; foliis 1£ poll, longis culmo longi- 

 oribus substrictiusculis a basi canaliculatis apice supra subplanis subtus carinatis; 

 fasciculo spicarum solitario apicali sessili tribracteafco 2-6-stachyo, bracteis insequalibus 

 spicis brevioribus; spicis teretibus ^ poll, longis ^ poll, latis squamis arete irnbricatis 

 ellipticis obtusis mucronatis paullo couvexis superne caiinulatis multinervatis basi fuscis. 



Socotra. Near Galonsir. B.C.S. n. 91. 



Distrib. Of the species — north-east Africa through south-west Asia to 

 Beloochistan and Affghanistan. Of the variety — endemic. 



This species, of which we have a very distinct variety in Socotra, is one which 

 is not a little protean, and there has been considerable confusion regarding its 

 nomenclature and multiplication of specific names for its forms. The confusion 

 is due in some part to the fact that in Schimper's Arabian Herbarium (sect, i.), 

 two plants which are distinct and recognisable have been distributed under the 

 same number — n. 810. One of these is C. conglomeratus., Roth, the other is 

 the species last mentioned from Socotra, C. proteinolepis, Bcklr. This latter is 

 quite as variable as the former, and it will be evident that thereby a very com- 

 plicated condition of the nomenclature might arise, and indeed it has arisen. 

 This is the conclusion to which I am led by a careful examination of the 

 specimens in the Kew Herbarium. 



Of each species one may recognise three distinct conditions. A dwarf form, 

 in which the plant is very small, compact, and tufted, with short leaves and 

 short culms terminating in few spikelets not forming an umbel, the spike- 

 lets are usually short and the leaves often exceed in length the inflorescence. 

 Then we have a medium form which might be considered the type. And 

 lastly a large form with all the parts increased in size and the umbels and size 

 of the spikelets usually great. Each one of these states presents deviations in 

 one way or another, and thus a multiplicity of varieties are produced. But 

 throughout the whole it is possible to discriminate the two species by the 

 character of the spikelets. In C. conglomeratus they are narrow, hardly com- 

 pressed, fewer flowered, and with the bracts more open and separate and not so 

 closely imbricate, whilst in C. proteinolepis they are broader, flattened, the 

 scales closely imbricate, and many more in number (relatively), and frequently 



