FLORA OF ADEN. 
9] 
Cocculus nearly allied to C. Leaba. I found only one specimen rising 
on a trachytic escarpment to a height of 26 — 33 feet. This plant which 
is growing very vigorously has a stem of 2-| inches in diameter. The 
branches are voluble, the bark glabrous and grey-yellowish striate. The 
leaves are glabrous, peltate, entire, oval, obtuse, mucronate, of variable 
dimensions. The limb of the best developed leaf is 3|- inches long and 
2 — 2-| inches broad, the petiole measuring 1 inch.” 
Faurot collected a similar plant near the Gulf of Tadjurah of which 
Franchet gives us the following characteristics: “A single branch, 
sterile; the leaves are very glaucous, soft, puberulous, peltate, truncate at 
the base, rounded or obscurely pentagonal, 3 — 5 lobed, terminal trian- 
gular ; it does not belong to any of the known species of Menispermaceae 
growing in that region. The Somalis use the root as food and they call 
it f gara/ ” 1 
Also Birdwood's herbarium contains some bits of a plant which differ 
in many respects from the typical Cocculus Cebatha. When preparing 
my former list of Aden plants I considered the specimen as a different 
species, but for want of sufficient material I was not able to specify it. 
The observations made by Schweinfurth in Eritrea and Nubia make it 
very probable that all these doubtful specimens are only different forms 
of the same species Cocculus Cebath a DC. (=leaeba DC.). He writes : 
“ The specimens from Saati (Eritrea) are young branches of a 2 or 3 year 
old plant which, at this age, always produces long twining shoots with 
large, broadly ovate, rounded triangular or three-1 obed leaves. These 
leaves are short-peltate at the base, 5-nerved and have in consequence 
of this, quite a different aspect from all the specimens of a fully 
developed shrub, and one might be tempted to suspect a new species of 
Menispermacese, if there were not some transition forms. A. Defiers 
collected in 1886 (Soc. Bot. de France 1887, p. 64) a cocculus on the 
Shum Shum Range of Aden, whose branches combine the elliptical leaves 
of C. leseba with the broadly ovate peltate leaves of the juvenile form 
mentioned above. The analogy with the hastate and 3-lobed leaves 
which always occur in young specimens of C. villosa DC. is evident ; the 
only difference is that they are never found in old plants. During my 
former visits to S. Nubia I had the opportunity of observing various 
forms of leaves on juvenile specimens, similar to those which occur on 
C. villosa, viz., cordate-3-lobed, 5-nerved, with peltate attachment of the 
blade to the petiole. The light-grey colour is constant.” 2 
1 Franchet, A. Plantes du Voyage au Golfe de Tadjourah recneillies par M. L. Faurot, 
in Journal de Botanique, Vol. I (1887), p 118. 
2 Schweinfurth. Sannnlung arabisch-tethiopischer Pflanzen. Bulletin de l’Herb, 
Boissier 1894, Append. II. 
