504 



MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 



[Vdl. 8, No. 5 



June 20, 1946, 16369. Kenya, Tanganyika Territory, Zanzibar, Portuguese East 

 Africa and Nyasaland. 



The characters used by N. E. Brown (I.e. p. 52) to separate his new genus 

 Lanugia from Mascarenbasia — "smaller flowers with shorter tubes and the corolla 

 pubescent on the inner surface, by the glands of the disk being free, the stouter, 

 teretely linear-lanceolate and somewhat woody pods (which in Mascarenbasia are 

 slender linear-terete and more or less nodose but not woody) and by the more 

 numerous seeds" — to me seem specific rather than generic, with the exception 

 of the free glands. 



I have examined various flowers from different gatherings of Mascarenbasia 

 variegata and I find the disc-glands neither constant nor as described by Brown. 

 The most frequent arrangement is three free glands accompanied by a fourth con- 

 nate pair [l + 1 + 1 + (2)J, but on the same specimens flowers may be found show- 

 ing one free gland with two connate pairs [l + (2) + (2)]. The arrangement men- 

 tioned by Brown (1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1) I have not actually found myself, but the 

 evident inconstancy of the glands makes it far from improbable. Now De Candolle 

 described Mascarenbasia as having one free gland together with either two pairs 

 or one quadruple gland \\ + (2) + (2) or 1 + (4)1. In A1. lisianthiflora A.DC. I have 

 found 1 + (2) + (2) and also (2) + (3) in different flowers on the same shoot. It 

 will be seen that 1 + (2) + (2) occurs in both Lanugia and Mascarenbasia, and 

 thus I feel that it is quite impossible to separate Lanugia from Mascarenbasia on 

 the gland structure. 



Pichon, Rev. Bot. Appl. 29: 24 (1940), sinks Mascarenbasia variegata, with 

 a swarm of other binomials, under M. arborescens A. DC. in DC. Prodr. 8: 488 

 (1844), a species from Madagascar of which we have no named material at Kew. 

 It is obvious that plants very closely related indeed to M. variegata occur in 

 Madagascar, and Pichon may well be right, but I feel it wiser to await other opin- 

 ions before introducing this unfamiliar name for the continental African species; 

 especially as M. micrantba Baker from Madagascar, of which we have a number of 

 specimens and which Pichon also includes under M. arborescens, is separable 

 by leaf-characters from M. variegata (see N. E. Brown, Torreya 27: 52, 53. 1927). 



Adenium multiflorum Klotzsch in Peters, Reise Mossamb. Bot. 279. pi. 44. 1861; 

 Stapf in Thiselton-Dyer, Fl. Trop. Afr. 4 1 : 229. 1902. 

 Kota-kota District: Kota-kota, cultivated, shrub 0.9-1.2 m. high, flowers pale 

 pink, margins of lobes darker pink, 460 m., Aug. 7, 1946, Sbortridge 17389. Nya- 

 saland and Portuguese East Africa to Natal. 



ASCLEPIADACEAE 







Raphionacme jurensis N. E. Br. in Thiselton-Dyer, Fl. Trop. Afr. 4 1 : 272. 1902. 



Chikwawa District: Chikwawa, sporadic in dry stony woodland, perennial herb 

 15-20 cm. high, leafless shoots flowering on burnt ground, flowers greenish- 

 white, 200 m., Oct. 5, 1946, 17985.* Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Tanganyika Terri- 

 tory, Nyasaland (for which this is the first record), and Portuguese East Africa, 



Glossostelma spathulatum (K. Schum.) Bullock, Kew Bull. 1952: 414. 1952. 



Schizoglossum spathulatum K. Schum. Bot„ Jahrb. 17: 120. 1893. 



Xysmalobium bellum N. E. Br.. Kew Bull. 1895: 69. 1895; in Thiselton-Dyer, Fl. Trop. 

 Afr. 4 1 : 311. 1902. 



Blantyre District: Blantyre, in Brachystegia woodlands, herb 30-40 cm. high, 

 1100 m., June 17, 1946, 16351. Belgian Congo, Tanganyika Territory, Portuguese 

 East Africa, Nyasaland, N. and S. Rhodesia, and Angola. 



