330 
RECORDS OF THE BOTANICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 
obscurely pulvinate sessile leaflets ; the latter obcordate-bilobed, cuneate 
at base, 8 mm. long 1 , T4 mm. broad at the broadest part, membranaceous, 
glabrous above and somewhat villous underneath ; secondary nerves 
o-4 pairs, divergent from the base of the midrib, straight. Scapes 
elongate, longer than the petioles, 16 cm. long, glabrous. Umbels few- 
or many-flowered, minutely bracteate ; bracts few, minute, involucrate, 
hairy, persistent ; pedicels unequal, l-2’2 cm. long, cernous when young, 
erect in flower, pilose. Flowers 1*5 cm. long. Sepals 5, lanceolate, 
5 mm. long, 1*2 mm. broad, considerably shorter than the petals, acute, 
membranous, glabrous, with hyaline margins and two contiguous glands 
towards the apex. Petals 5, golden-yellow, united a little above the 
base only, shortly clawed, oblong, cuneate at the base, 1*4 cm. long, 2 
mm. broad, glabrous. Stamens 10, alternately longer and shorter, 
united into a tube for a considerable way, then free above ; longer 
lilaments 6 mm. long, shorter filaments 4 mm. long; anthers oblong. 
Ovary ovate, 5 mm. long. Styles 5, very short, hairy; stigmas 5, 
oapitellate. 
We first know of this species from Linnaeus in the first edition 
of his Species Plantarum 1753, where he very briefly describes the 
plant as Aethiopian. It is therefore one of the earliest known members 
of the genus. Thunberg — in his Dissertations on the Oxalidaceaj 1781 — 
describes and figures it as Oxalis cernua from South African material 
and its frequency and variability in this its native habitat would appear 
to be responsible for Ecklon and Zeyher in their Enumeratio Plantarum 
including it three times under different names. If Abyssinia be excluded 
its presence in the tropical African flora is questioned. Oliver (Flora 
of Tropical Africa^ enters it but does not seem certain that it is truly 
indigenous. More than a century ago it was already establishing itself 
in North Africa and South Europe and is now quite at home along 
the Mediterranean littoral, Boissier mentions it as in Asia Minor in 
1867 but it seems unlikely that it had not already established itself 
in that region before this period. On its European introduction Muschler 
remarks that it was brought to Malta in 1806 and probably propagated 
with the culture of the mandarine. Sickenberger (Conirib. Flor. 
(p Egypt) notes that in Egypt not only the generally distributed 
microstylous form is found but also at Cairo (Botan. Garden) the 
macrostylous one. Of American records we have but one, that of Gray 
in his Synoptical Flora of North America where he refers to it as an 
fjscape from gardens in Florida but not yet (1895) hardy. An interest- 
ing point in its distributional history is its presence in the Bermudas 
in 1S73 where it was collected during the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger 
Towards the middle of last century 0. Ves-capra had found its way 
