122 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
Description A prostrate and rooting or decumbent annual, woolly 
at the joints. Leaves plane, fleshy, J-J- inch long, ovate, acute, with 
long and numerous stipular setae. 
Flowers terminal, solitary, subsessile, surrounded by silvery hairs 
and an involucre of 4 leaves. Sepals broadly oblong, rounded at the 
apex. Petals 4, yellow, oblong-obovate. Stamens 8. Style slender, 
4-fid to near the middle. 
Capsules conical. Seeds minutely tubercled. 
Flowers: — August 1898 (Birdwood). 
Locality: — Aden (Birdwood, Hunter). 
Distribution : — Upper and Lower Guinea, Abyssinia, India. 
Note : — f ‘ In 1877, during the months of February and March, many 
parts of the settlement were covered with a green mantle of Fortulaca , 
Rain fell in frequent showers during those months. 1 ” (Hunter.) 
VIII. — MALVACEAE. 
Herbs or soft-wooded shrubs and trees, their surface often covered 
with soft stellate pubescence ; wood light. Leaves alternate, mostly 
stipulate, usually palminerved, entire or more or less deeply lobed. 
Flowers large, regular, hermaphrodite or very rarely dioecious or 
polygamous, axillary, terminal, solitary, clustered or cymose-paniculate. 
Involucral bracts 2 or more or none. Sepals generally 5, more or less 
connate, valvate in bud. Petals 5, hypogynous, more or less adnate to 
the staminal tube, in bud twisted or imbricate. Stamens co , rarely 
definite, usually connate into a tube ; anthers globose, oblong or reni- 
form, cells sinuous or twisted, linear or annular, ultimately one-celled, 
bursting lengthwise. Ovary 2-m any-celled, entire or lobed, of 2-5 or 
more carpels, whorled round a central axis. Styles distinct or more or 
less connate ; stigmas linear, peltate, capitate or spathulate. 
Fruit of dry cocci, or capsular and loculicidal. Seeds reniform or 
obovoid, rarely arillate. Embryo curved in reniform seeds, usually straight 
in obovoid ; cotyledons leafy, usually folded crumpled. 
Genera 57 ; species about 700. 
Distribution: — Throughout the world except in the Arctic regions.. 
Bracelets none . . . • . . . 3 . Abutilon. 
Bracelets present. 
Style ultimately dividing into stigmatic branches 2. Hibiscus. 
Style club-shaped at the apex (cultivated) . . 3. Thespesia. 
1. Abutilon Tournef. 
Herbs or shrubs covered with down. Leaves cordate, ovate, angled 
or lobed. 
