FLORA OF ADEN. 
102 
Fruits: — Dec. 1888 (Schweinf.), January 1863 (Oliver and Cl.), 
Apl. 1861 (Thomson), Nov. 1884 (Beevor). 
Locality : — From the sea shore up to 1,000 feet of the Shum Shum 
Range (Hook., Anders.) ; on sand fields along the coast (Schweinf.) ; 
without locality (Bird wood, Hildebrandt, Lnnt, Perry, Beevor) ; near 
Shaikh Othmau (Defl.). 
3. Maerua Forsk. 
Shrubs or small trees, destitute of spines, glabrous or pubescent. 
Leaves simple or trifoliate, often with minute setaceous stipules. 
Flowers axillary, solitary or fascicled, or in terminal racemes or 
corymbs. Sepals 4, united at the base into a persistent infundibuliform 
tube forming a 4-lobed calyx. Petals 0 or 4, episepalous. Disk infundi- 
buliform, lining the calyx-tube, elongated in the middle into a columnar 
obconic receptacle or torus equalling or slightly exceeding the calyx* tube. 
Stamens indefinite, inserted on the torus ; filaments free or connate at 
the base. Ovary cylindrical, linear-oblong or ovoid, on a long gynophore, 
1-2-celled ; placentas 2-4, parietal or cohering in the middle ; stigma 
sessile or subsessile. 
Fruit baccate, the constrictions of the pericarp sometimes separating 
it into numerous 1-seeded segments. Seeds large, cotyledons fleshy, 
convolute. 
Species : — About 20. 
Distribution ; —Tropical Africa, Arabia, W. India, 
Not climbing — 
Leaves coriaceous . . . , 1. M. Thomsoni. 
Leaves succulent . . . , 2. M. crassifolia. 
Climbing . . . . . . 3. M. ovalifolia. 
1. Maerua Tliomsoni Anders. Journ. Linn. Soc. Y, Suppl. p. 5. 
Description : — A shrub, quite glabrous, virgate, leafy, cortex 
punctate ; branches very few ; leaves coriaceous, mucronate, short- 
petioled, those of the flowering branches fasciculate, oblong, on the other 
branches alternate, linear. 
Flowers solitary, pedunculate. Calyx tubular, shortly 4-partite. 
Fruit fleshy, stipitate, glabrous, torulose. 
Flowers : — In February 1851 (Hook, f, and Thomson). 
Locality : — Aden (Hook. f. and Thomson, Balfour, Kuntze). 
Endemic in Aden. 
