FLORA OF ADEN. 
129 
2, Melhania Forst. 
Herbs and undershrubs covered more or less densely with stellate 
tomentum. Leaves ovate or roundish. 
Peduncles simple or cymose, remote or crowded at the ends of the 
branches. Bractlets broad or narrow. Sepals 5. Petals 5, convolute 3 
marcescent. Fertile stamens 5, alternating 1 with an equal number of 
staminodes, all combined below into a shallow cup. Anthers extrorse, 
cells parallel ; connective thick. Ovary sessile, 5-celled ; cells with 1 
or many ovules. Styles short, dividinglabove into 5 liguliform stigmatic 
branches. 
Capsule loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds albuminous. Cotyledons 
plicate, 2-partite ; radicle inferior. 
Species 16. 
Distribution : — Warmer parts of Africa, Asia, Australia. 
1. Melhania Denlianiii R. Br. in Denh. et Clapp. Voy. App. p. 233. 
Brotera bracteosa Guill. et Perr. FI. Seneg. I, 80, tab. 17. 
Melhania Kotschyi Hochst. PI. Nub. sect. I, no, 219. 
Melhania bracteosa Boiss. FI. Or. I, 841. 
Cardiostegia Kotschyi Presl. Epimel. Bot., p. 249. 
Description : — A small shrub ; stock woody, dividing into a large 
number of crowded, spreading, downy, somewhat compressed branches. 
Leaves |-1J by inch, elliptic, stellately hairy above, hoary pubescent 
beneath, crenate-serrate, apiculate, 5-nerved at the base ; petioles |-§ 
inch long ; stipules subulate, hairy. 
Flowers in axillary peduncled racemose cymes ; pedicels very short ; 
involucral bracts greatly enlarged, up to f inch broad in fruit, reniform, 
broader than long, membranous, veined, apiculate, enclosing the capsule. 
Sepals ovate-lanceolate, pubescent. Corolla yellow. Style as long as 
the ovary. 
Capsules globose, pubescent, 5-celled with 1 or 2 smooth seeds in 
each cell. 
Fruits: — Nov. 1884 (Beevor), 
Locality : — Crater of the Shum Shum Range, near the Flagstaff 
(Defl.) ; without locality (Birdw., Beevor) ; seems to be very rare. 
Distribution : — Nubia, Eritrea, Kordofan, Darfur, Central and S. 
Arabia, Baluchistan, Sind. 
X— TILIACM. 
Trees or shrubs, sometimes herbaceous plants. Leaves alternate, 
entire, dentate or rarely lobed. Stipules in pairs, deciduous, rarely 
persistent or 0. Flowers cymose, lateral and terminal, rarely axillary 
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