Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/150

 130 NEW AFRICAN PLANTS. peene ad basin 5-partito, segmentis lineari-acuminatis ciliolatis ; corollflB tubo super basin tenuem constricto turn subito inflate, antice gibboso, labio postico rectangulo-oblongo, super genitalia incurvato, labio antico patente usque ad medium 3-partito lobis oblongis apice rotundatis ; antheris superpositis brevissime cal- caratis. Hab. Sheik-lmsin, Sept. 21st, 1894, Donaldson Smith. The longest branch measures 3 ft. below the terminal in- florescence; the lower part is covered with a thin, papery, brownish, easily peeling bark. The largest leaves have a blade 3 in. in length by 2 in breadth, with a slender petiole of 1^ in. On the branchlets below the inflorescence they are about 1 in. long by ^ in. broad. The number of large bright-coloured flowers gives the inflorescence a striking appearance. The individual flowers are almost sessile, forming crowded cymes, which again are almost sessile in the axils of the bracts. The bracteoles are linear-lanceolate, shghtly hairy, and ^ in. or more in length. The calyx is 4 lines long ; the corolla- tube is nearly ^ in., the slender erect portion below the constriction 4 lines ; the posterior lip has a truncate apex, and is f in. long by 5 lines broad ; it arches over the slightly protruding stigma and anthers; the spreading lower lip is f in. long, the lobes 4 lines broad. The stamens are nearly 1 in. long; of the oval oblong anthers, the upper is placed transversely on the top of the filament, the lower is fixed to the side at almost a right angle with the upper ; they are 1^ lines long; the delicate spur is less than a quarter their length. The pollen-grain is banded. The rather slender ovary is IJ- lines long, the filiform style 1 in. The two ovules in each loculus are alternately superposed. Near the S. African D. adhatodoides E. Mey., but has rather larger flowers, differing in their much longer calyx-teeth, and the shape of the corolla, especially in the truncate posterior lip, and the larger more oblong lobes of the anterior, and also in the spurred anthers. Euphorbia tetracantha, sp. nov. Humilis, fruticosa, glau- cescens, ramis 4-angulatis, pulvinis decurrentibus aculeis quaternis horridis ; cymis ramorum apice binis axillaris oppositis ; bracteis minutis ovatis ; cyathiis 3, sessilibus, externe breviter papillosis, mediana 3" breviter et late campanulata, lateralibus cyathiformibus flore centrali 2, floribus 3 circumdatis ; involucris segmentis 5 brevibus subfimbriatis, glandulis in annulum 5-undulatum crassi- usculum coalitis ; floribus 3 squamis apice fimbriatis interspersis ; ovario pedicellato, stigmatibus tribus indivisis coronata. Hab. Shebeli, Sept. 4th, 1894, Donaldson Smith. 6 in. high. The spreading branches springing from a short stout woody stem, and subfleshy (2 lines thick). Their four angles are determined by the hard decurrent pulvini, each of which bears four stiff projecting sharply pointed spines, two lower longer ones reaching 10 lines, and two upper slenderer and shorter less than half the length. The cyathia are borne in opposite sessile cymes, three in each. The central, male, is slightly shorter and broader than the two lateral (scarcely 1 line long by more than 1 line broad