A Bevision of the Genus Alepidea. 
3 
10-ribbed, smooth, muricate entirely or only at the apex or on the ribs, 
ochreous or dark brown, shining or dull, splitting into 2 mericarps, 
flattened on their inner face and adnate to an undivided carpophore, 
which occasionally separates and persists on the mature receptacle ; 
vittae 10, marginal, seated under the ridges. 
Glabrous herbs with short ligneous rhizomes and fibrous or subfleshy 
fascicled roots ; stems solitary, erect, slender or robust, terete or angular 
and grooved, fistular, simple at the base, umbellately, racemosely or 
paniculately branched above, with the ultimate branchlets either smooth 
or minutely scaberulous. Leaves alternate, undivided, rigid or flexible, 
glabrous, all sessile or the radical stalked ; cauline distant or imbricate, 
amplexicaul, adpressed or spreading, reticulated, coarsely or ciliately 
toothed or margined with slender or stout bristles. Flower-heads solitary, 
few or many subumbellately disposed on the ends of the branches, 
congested or spreading, involucrate. Involucre-segments 5-15, united at 
the base or to their middle, in one or two series, obtuse to acuminate 
entire or occasionally toothed, keeled and often veined, coriaceous or 
papery, stellately spreading or ascending, exceeding the flowers. 
Alepidea, Delaroche, Eryng. Hist. 19, t. 1, 1808. Poiret in Lam. 
Encyl. Supp. I. 288, 1810. DC. Prod. IV. i. 87, 1830. Don. Syst. 
Bot. III. 266, 1834. Endl. Gen. II. 767, 1836. Meisn. Gen. 141, 1836- 
43 ; Harv. Gen. S.A. Pits. 133, 1838 ; Spach Hist. Veg. VIII. 139, 1839 ; 
Spach in D'Orb. Diet. I. 307, 1841 ; Gay Eryng., Nov. 6, 1848. Sond. 
in El. Cap. II. 533, 1862. Bth. et Hk. f. Gen. PI. I. iii. 878, 1867. 
Baillon Diet. I. 94, 1876. Hiern in Oliver El. Trop. Afric, III. 7, 1877 ; 
Drude in Engl, and Prantl Pflans Fam. III. 8, 139, 1898. Wood Handb. 
El. Nat. 56, 1907. Thonner Bliitensfl. Afr. 429, 1908. Alepida, O. Kuntz. 
Eev. Gen. III. ii. 110, 1898. Astrantia, Linn. f. Supp. 117, 1781. Linn. 
Syst. Veg. 272, 1784. Thunb. Prod. 49, 1794. Persoon Syn. PI. I. 304, 
1805. Thunb. El. Cap. II. 196, 1818. Schult. Syst. Veg. VI. 343, 1820. 
Eryngiiim, Baillon Hist. PI. VII. 240, 1880. Jasione, Berg. Act. Ups. 
III. 188, 1780. 
Key to Species. 
I. Expanded involucre in. in diameter with 5-10 equal or unequal 
segments. 
a. Stem equally leafy throughout its entire length. 
*Stem, robust 3-8 ft. high ; lower cauline leaves 5-12 in. long, 
1-8 in. broad. 
Teeth of the leaf -margin entire. Involucre of 5 large sub- 
equal segments with small alternating teeth, calyx-teeth 
rudimentary, -|-^ line long 1. amatymhka. 
Teeth of the leaf -margin bi- or trifid. Involucre of 10 large 
subequal segments ; calyx-teeth ^-i- line long 2. Macowiuii. 
**Stem slender, |-2i ft. high; cauline leaves imbricate, the 
lower |-3 in. long, i^- broad. 
