212 
FLORA OF ADEN. 
Aechmandra velutina Dalz. and Gibs, Bomb. FI. p. 100. 
Description A stout climbing 1 herb ; root fibrous ; stems angular 
hairy, deeply grooved, not much branched. Tendrils long, striate, 
simple. Leaves fleshy, suborbicular in outline, 2 — 3 inches long, pale-green 
and at first softly villous, finally scabrid above, tomentose and ashy grey 
beneath, cordate or subcordate at the base, deeply palmately 3 — 5-lobed * 
lobes rounded or oblong, irregularly denticulate. 
Male flowers in 15 — 20-flowered racemes ; peduncle 2 — 4 inches long* 
Calyx hairy ; teeth narrowly triangular ; corolla greenish-yellow ; 
segments ovate — oblong, subacute, inch long. Anthers subsessile ; 
connective scarcely produced, bifid. Female flowers fascicled, subsessile. 
Fruit including the beak | inch long, sessile, ellipsoid, red when ripe,, 
finely velvety. Seeds | inch in diameter, globose. 
Fruits: — March (Schweinf.). 
Locality : — Aden (Birdwood, Schweinf.). 
Distribution : — Tropical Africa, Sind. 
XXIII, — FICOIDE4E. 
Herbs or low shrubs. Leaves opposite, alternate or pseudo- verti* 
cilia te, simple, often fleshy ; stipules none or scarious. 
Flowers solitary or usually cymose. Petals usually wanting or small. 
Stamens perigynous or hypogynous, definite or indefinite; filaments free 
or variously connate at the base. Disk 0 or annulate. Ovary usually 
free, 2 — 5-eelled ; styles or stigmas as many as cells of ovary ; ovules 
solitary, few or . 
Fruit usually capsular, splitting dorsally or circumscissilely, or less 
commonly separating into cocci. Seeds solitary or numerous, usually 
reniform, compressed ; testa membranous or crustaceous ; embryo curved 
round farinaceous or fleshy albumen. 
Genera 22 ; species about 450. 
Distribution .* — Tropical and sub-tropical regions. 
Stamens inserted on the calyx-tube . . . . 1. Trianthema. 
Stamens hypogynous. 
Fruit capsular. 
Petals many . . . , . . . 2. Orygia. 
Petals o . . . . . . . 3. Mollugo. 
Fruit of 2 one*seeded cocci . . . . . 4. Limeum. 
1. Trianthema L, 
Herbs or undershrubs, glabrous or papillose. Leaves opposite, un- 
equal, entire, linear to rotund ate ; petiole dilated with membranous 
stipuliform margins. 
