£98 
FLOtiA OF ADEN . 
Distribution : — Central and Southern Arabia, Eritrea, Abyssinia, 
Nubia, Egypt, Sinai. 
2. Cometcs surattensis Bunn. El. Ind. 89, t. 15, f . 5 ; Boiss. El. 
Or. 1, 758 ; Wall. ,P1. As. Rar. I, 17, t. 17 ; Cat. 810 ; Hook. FI. Brit. 
Ind. IV, 712 ; Cooke El. Bomb. Pres. II, 481. 
Cometes apiculata Dene, in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. 2, 11/244. 
Ceratonychia nidus Edgew. in Journ. As. Soc. Beng. vol. 16, p. 1215. 
Cometes abyssinica T. Anders. ( non R. Br. !) in Journ. Linn. Soc. V, 
Suppl. p. 32. 
Description : — A/ow herb, 4 — 10 inches high, much-branched from 
near the base, woody below ; branches numerous, erect, terete, pale, 
glabrous or the young ones slightly pubescent. Leaves J — 1 by J — \ inch, 
elliptic, acute, mucronate, glabrous, base acute, decurrent into a short 
often obscure petiole — \ inch long. 
Flowers 3 together in heads 4 — § inch in diameter (including the 
bracts), surrounded by numerous pinnatipartite feathery yellowish-red 
bracts whose ultimate segments are needle-like, which close and interlace 
over the fruit preventing the escape of the seed and causing it to germi- 
nate in the head. Stamens longer than the staminodes. 
Locality : — Plain of Maala, ravine above the European cemetery of 
Steamer Point (Schweinf.) . 
Distribution: — S. Arabia, Waziristan, Baluchistan, Sind. 
XLIL— AMARANTACEJB. 
Herbs or undershrubs, erect or with climbing branches. Leaves 
simple, entire, opposite or alternate ; stipules 0. 
Flowers usually hermaphrodite, rarely polygamous or dioecious, 
small, usually in terminal simple or paniculate spikes, cymes or clusters 
(the outer flowers of a cluster sometimes deformed) ; bracts hyaline or 
scarious, never leafy ; bracteoles 2, scarious. Perianth usually of 5 free 
or slightly connate hyaline or scarious persistent sepals, imbricate in bud. 
Stamens 1 — 5, opposite the sepals, usually included ; filaments usually 
connate below or united with intervening membranous staminodes in 
a hypogynous cup ; anthers 1- or 2-celled. Ovary 1-celled, ovoid, 
ellipsoid or globose ; ovules 1 or more, amphitropous, erect or suspended 
from short or long free basal funicles ; style sometimes simple or 
obsolete with capitellate or small stigma, sometimes 2 — 3-fid with acute 
stigmas ; or styles 2 or 3 papillosely stigmatic on the lower face, erect 
or recurved. 
Fruit a membranous utricle, rarely a circumscissilely or irregularly 
rupturing capsule, very rarely a berry, inclosed in or supported by the 
