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point (apiculate), tapering and smoothish at the basal part, papillate-scabrid at the upper 
part, slightly concave above, convex on the back, entire, green, with a red margin, the 
two lower withered. Flower solitary, from the centre of the leaves, radical, pedunculate, 
white. Peduncle shorter than the leaves, 1-flowered. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes ovate- 
lanceolate. 
It grows on the intermediate Roggeveld, and was out of flower in November. 
Although no specimen in Thunberg’s Herbarium is named M. spathulatum. 1 find in 
it an unnamed specimen that so exactly agrees with the original description of that species, 
that I think there can be no doubt whatever that it is the specimen of M. spathulatum 
from which he made his description, but that he omitted to write the name on the sheet, 
thus probably causing it to be omitted from his “ Flora Capensis.” This specimen is 
marked on the back of the sheet merely as having been collected at the Cape of Good Hope 
by Thunberg. The following is a description of the specimen — 
A stemless perennial. Root-stock fleshy, about 2 inches long and ? inch thick at the 
upper part, where it divides into a few branches 3-4 lines long and 2-4 lines thick, each 
crowned with a small rosette of leaves; the lower part is abruptly contracted into a more 
' slender portion giving off fibres. Leaves 4—6 in each rosette or growth, opposite, crowded, 
erect, or the outer spreading and withering; each leaf 4—7 lines long, 4—5 lines broad at 
the apical part, spathulate-obovate, very obtusely rounded at the apex, with a short 
apiculus, narrowed into a stout petiole-like part from about the middle to the base, where 
they are very shortly united, the upper part on both surfaces scabrid-papillate, from 
being covered with small, crowded, hard tubercles, which when highly magnified are seen 
to be themselves rough from being covered with very minute, hard, conical papillae : 
the lower or petiolar part is smoother; they appear to have been flat or perhaps slightly 
concave above, convex on the back. The specimen is flowerless, but there is a detached 
capsule, which evidently belongs to the plant, as the calyx-lobes are covered with the same 
peculiar tubercles, which on the lower part pass into crowded smooth dots, that are probably 
slightly prominent on the living plant. This capsule is 6 lines in diameter, hemispheric 
and 5-valved, with 5 calyx-lobes and a piece of a slender pedicel 1 line long, that is not 
dotted, attached to it. The calyx-lobes are 2-3 lines long, broadly ovate, apparently 
acute. 
This very distinct plant is nearly allied to M. calcareum, Marloth; which also has the 
same peculiar type of tubercles upon its leaves, but they are longer, differently rounded 
at the apex, and are without the little apiculus present on those of M. spathulatum. 
M. spinosum, Thunb., “ Fl. Cap,” p. 420. 
Three sheets, marked a, , and 7, collected in the Karroo between Olifants River 
and the Bokkeveld Mountains, and at Hantam. 
` Sheet a contains a specimen identical with `` M. spinosum, a,” of Herb. Drége, but 
it is not M. spinosum, Linn., and is undescribed. I therefore describe it as— 
M. aculeatum, N.E.Br. 
A shrub resembling M. spinosum in habit, with 3-forked spiny flowering branches. 
Branches straight, not intricately intermingled. Internodes 4-12 lines long, with grey 
or brown bark on the old parts, the younger parts, including the spines, which are 6-9 lines 
long and nearly or quite half a line thick at their base, marked with elongated immersed 
dots, glabrous. Leaves opposite, short and stout, shortly united at the base, 13-23 lines 
long, 14-2 lines broad and 1 line thick on the dried specimens, flat above, slightly keeled 
beneath, obtuse or apiculate, spreading, each with a young shoot 2-3 lines long i in its axl, 
bearing two pairs of crowded leaves, obscurely gland-dotted. Flowers solitary from the 
tufts of leaves on the widely spreading spines. Pedicels 1 line or less long. Calyx 5-lobed, 
about 14 line in diameter across the short and very broadly obconic (or hemispheric ?) 
tube (ovary); lobes subequal, about 1 line long, ovate, obtuse, three with broad 
