AIZOON. 
305 
or stone tracery work, very stiff and rigid tough or woody thick 
and flattened, appearing more strongly flexuose from the knobbed 
or thickened and dilated axils, and projecting regularly alter- 
nate adnate caps. Whole pi. usually of a peculiar apple- or 
light y.-gr. and thickly but shortly and inconspicuously pu- 
bescent. L. rather small and inconspicuous except towards the 
ends of the branches, about \ in. long and 3 or 4 lines wide 
flaccid succulent and quickly withering, minutely pellucid- 
papulose, more or less obtuse, attenuated downwards into rather 
long petioles. FI. small gr. star-like, bright apple-gy. or sul- 
phur-y. within. Lobes of cal. half-ovate. Anth. y. subglobose. 
Stigmas 5 sessile filiform simple y. Caps, large, hard and 
woody, coated by the persistent woody 5-lobed cal., strongly 
pentangular and with the base broadly adnate to the branches, 
2-3 lines broad, not quite so high, very numerous and becoming 
densely crowded towards the centre of the pi., broadly or shortly 
turbinate or cylindric-obovate, turning first purplish, then brown, 
bursting only with rain or moisture. Seeds very minute black 
shining kidney-shaped, elegantly ribbed and grooved spirally, 
the ribs granulate. In 3ome of the Canary Islands (Lanzarote 
and Fuerte ventura, where the pi. is called Tata) they are col- 
lected in times of scarcity and used for food ; the meal obtained 
from them, mixed with barley, forming a coarse sort of u Gojio ,” 
which is the ordinary food of the poor in those sadly miscalled 
“Fortunate Islands.” 
The whole pi. continues long through the aut. and winter in 
a dried state on the surface of the soil unchanged in form though 
entirely lifeless, looking like some brown coral or zoophyte. 
2. A. HISPANICUM L. 
Herbaceous smooth roughly papulose; st. dichotomously 
branched straggling diffusely decumbent or ascending ; 1. oppo- 
site spathulate-oblong or linear-ligulate ; fl. solitary sessile in 
the forks of the branches, the uppermost only apparently shortly 
stalked.— Dill. Hort. Elth. i. 143. t. 117. f. 143 ; Desf. i. 399 ; DC. 
Id. Gr. t. 30 ; DC. iii. 454. — Herb. ann. PS. reg. 1 or 2 (lower 
part), rrr. Campo Debaixo, roadside and border of a cornfield 
along a road leading to some cottages at the E. base of Pico 
d’Anna Ferreira about 2 miles to the W. of the town in P t0 S t0 , 
in one spot only but plentifully. Apr., May. — Root small pale 
tortuose simple hard woody. Whole pi. smooth and succulent 
with the habit of a Mesembrianthemum, dark full gr. Stems 
diffusely spreading or even prostrate G-12 in. long repeatedly 
branched sometimes almost erect and bushy. L. 1-2 in. long, 
2-4 lines broad, in pairs at the forks of the branches, obtuse or 
only the uppermost subacute. Fl. rather large or about f in. 
in diam., like those of some Ornitliorjalum ; the uppermost not 
