Adenoclineae of South Africa, 38 1 
felt by Muller has, however, been dispelled by Schlechter and by Kassner, 
who since 1 86(5 have found that M. annua is present, as an introduced weed 
of cultivated ground, in the Cape and the Tulbagh divisions of the Coast 
region of South Africa. It is, however, to be noted that the Outeniqua 
locality given by Thunberg for M. annua (ed. Schult, 387) must relate to 
the Leidesia y which does occur in woods, not to the Mercurialis , which is 
only to be found in fields and gardens. 
The next Mercurialis recorded from South Africa was M. triandra , 
E. Mey., a very distinct species described in 1829 (Linnaea, iv. 237) from 
specimens collected within the Orange River catchment area by Drege. 
This is the species which in 1858 was treated by Eaillon (£tud. gen. 
Euphorb., 465, t. 9, fig. 7) as the basis of his genus Seidelia. Drege’s other 
species of Mercurialis from South Africa were not enumerated till 1843 
(Zwei Pfl. Documente, 201), where, in addition to M. triandra , E. Meyer 
has recorded M. annua ?, Drege, and M. tricoccay E. Mey. The former is 
not M, annua , Linn. ; it has a quincuncially imbricate in place of a valvate 
male calyx and a 3-coccous in place of a 2-coccous capsule, so that it is 
not even Mercurialineous. Curiously, the other species, M. tricocca^ E. Mey., 
is in intention, and partly in practice, the same species with 3-coccous 
capsules and imbricate male calyx-lobes. But along with this non- 
Mercurialineous plant Meyer issued as M. tricocca both the Leidesia which 
Linnaeus had named Merctirialis procumbens and the one which Thunberg 
had named Acalypha obtusa. 
The same year, 1843, saw the publication by Meissner (Hook. Lond. 
Journ. Bob, ii. 556-9), from specimens obtained by Krauss, of four species 
of Mercurialis^ which, as they have 3-coccous capsules and imbricate calyx- 
lobes, are not Mercurialineae but belong to Adenocline , Turcz. They were 
enumerated again by Krauss himself in 1845 (Flora, xxviii. 84) with the 
addition (1. c., 85) of M. tricocca , on this occasion as limited by Ecklon and 
Zeyher to the plant with imbricate calyx and 3-coccous capsules, and without 
the confusion created by Meyer. In 1846 Kunze raised at Leipzig, from 
Cape seed sent by Zeyher, this same species, for which he provided a new 
name, M. violaefolia (Ind. Sem.Hort. Bot. Lips. MDCCCXLVl,c. diagn.). 1 This 
3-coccous plant he described more fully in 1847 (Linnaea, xx. 55), along 
with another raised from South African seed, which he had issued as 
M. Zeyheri, but which he now believed (1. c., 54) might be Meissner’s 
M. bupleuroides. This latter plant, though undoubtedly, like Meissner’s 
sheets so described as A. glabrata. This species, according to Steudel, was taken up by Sprengel as 
Acalypha acuta. In 1843, however, when establishing the genus Adenocline , Turczaninow (Bull. 
Soc. Imp. Nat. Mosc., xvi. 1, 59) altered its trivial name ‘acuta’ to ‘ Mercurialis’. 
1 It appears possible that Kunze, in using this name, may have been subconsciously influenced 
by the idea that the plant designated might be Hermann’s Mercurialis africana dicoccos folio violae 
tricoloris. It certainly much resembles Hermann’s species in externals, but the imbricate calyx and 
the 3-coccous capsules show that it is not the same plant. 
