FLOUA OF ADEN. 
297 
Utricle enclosed in the perianth. Seed globose, lenticular or reni- 
form ; testa smooth ; albumen floury ; embryo straight, curved or 
annular ; cotyledons oblong ; radicle inferior. 
Genera 17 ; species about 90. 
Distribution : — In most warm dry regions. 
1. Cometes Linn, 
Low annular branched herbs. Leaves opposite, sessile or narrowed 
into a short petiole, mucronate, entire ; stipules minute, setaceous. 
Flowers 3 together, the central flower only perfect, surrounded by 
ferruginous feathery many-partite at length elongate and squarrose 
bracts. Perianth herbaceous, 5-partite ; segments erect, linear-oblong, 
awned at the back below the apex. Stamens 5, perigynous, alternating 
and united with 5 membranous staminodes forming a cup below ; 
anthers didymous. Ovary ovoid- lanceolate, attenuated into a filiform 
curved style with 3 minute stigmas ; ovule erect. 
Utricle enclosed in the perianth, obovoid. Seed obovoid, erect ; testa 
membranous, with a large lateral chalaza embryo large, on one side of 
scanty albumen ; cotyledons oblong, plano-convex ; radicle inferior. 
Species 2. 
Distribution : — Tropical Africa, Oriental region, North India. 
Staminodes longer than the stamens l . . : . 1 C. abyssinica. 
Staminodes shorter than the stamens ... . 2 C. surattensis. 
1. Cometes abyssinica R. Br. in Wall. PI. As. rar. I, 18, tab. 18 ; 
Boiss. FI. Or. I, 753 ; This. -Dyer FI. Trop. Afr. V, 14. 
Saltia abyssinica R. Br. in Salt Abyss. App. IV, 74. 
Description An erect perennial herb. Stems | — 1 foot long, pubes- 
cent, many times dichotomously branched. Leaves sessile, spreading, 
lanceolate, opposite or verticellate, the lower 1 — 1£ inches long. 
Clusters of flowers very numerous, terminal on the branchlets ; bracts 
at first comparatively small, finally overlapping the flowers, with many 
stramineous pungent divisions, so that the heads look like a prickly ball 
about 1 inch in diameter. Perianth 2 lines long, green ; segments oblong 
tipped with a spreading mucro which becomes as long as the blade. 
Staminodes lingulate, longer than the fertile stamens. 
Fruits : — January 1883 (Balfour), March 1878 (Perry). 
Locality: — Plain of Maala, Biggari and Koosaf Valley (Defl.) ; 
Shum Shum Range (Ellenbeck); on the way to the top of the Shum 
Shum Range at a height of about 670 feet (Busse) ; the great valley 
between Steamer Point and the town (Marchesetti) ; without locality 
(Perry, Balfour). 
