Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/445

 DR. DONALDSON SMITH's ACANTHACEiE. 413 The flowers are borne in short crowded few-flowered spikes at the ends of the branchlets. The lower bracts are foliaceous, the upper ones more membranous, narrowly elliptical and narrowed at both ends, and pubescent and glandular-hairy like the sepals; they reach 16 mm. in length by 3-3-5 in breadth. The bracteoles are 8-5 mm. long, about f mm. broad. The posterior sepal is 17 mm. by 5-5*5, the anterior, which is bifid for about one-third from the apex, is 16 by 5-5-6 mm., the lateral 13 by 1-5 mm. ; they bear scattered soft white hairs and minute yellow glandular hairs. The corolla- tube is cylindrical for 8 mm. of its length, then suddenly expands into a funnel 6 mm. long; the upper lip has convex sides, is 17 mm. long, and when flattened 4 mm. broad ; the lower is 18 mm. long, its three lobes are 5 mm. long, the middle 4 mm., the lateral 5 mm. broad. The stronger stamens are 18 mm. long, the smaller 11 mm. ; the anthers 2-5 mm. The disc surrounding the ovary is 1 mm. high, and has an undulate margin. An unripe fruit was 12 mm. long. Leucobarleria polyacantha Lindau. Turfa and Shebele Eiver, Aug. 1894. As the corolla was absent in the specimens from which Lindau described the species [Annuar. R. Istit. Botan. di Roma, vi. (1896), 77), it will be useful to supplement his description from our material. It is small, sparsely hairy on the outside, 10 mm. long, with a narrow tube (3 mm. by scarcely 1-5 mm.) widening into a Convolvulus -like funnel 8-9 mm. broad at the mouth. The margin is undulate, and shows only a very slight indication of division into parts ; it is traversed longitudinally by four sets of 3-4 prominent parallel veins. The small hairy stamens are inserted at the mouth of the tube, which is also pilose. The larger have a curved filament only 1 mm. long, from the top of which are suspended the two fertile anther-cells, which are barely -5 mm. long; the smaller have a filament -5 mm. long ; only one cell is fertile, the other is a small elliptical stalked structure. Dyschoriste somalensis, sp. nov. Frutex ramis teretibus plus minus elongatis suberectis, ramulis junioribus velut foliis et calyci pubescentibus ; foliis parvis ovalibus interdum subobovatis, basi in petiolum breve angustatis; floribus axillaribus aolitariis, bracteolis minutis linearibus ; calyce tubulif orme superne | quinque- fida, dentibus acutis ; coroUae tubo longo tenue ore ampliato, lobis tribus obovatis altius connatis, duobus obovato-cuneatis ; staminibus per paria basi connatis, antherae partibus basi breviter mucronatis ; capsula calyce inclusa. Hab. Sheik-husin, Aug. 1894. The specimen consists of a long almost erect strong woody shoot rooting at the base, nearly 1 metre high, and 3-5 mm. in diameter just above its base, also a shorter more spreading shoot which may have been torn from the base of the longer. The branchlets bear short leafy shoots. The leaves may be 17 mm. long (including a petiole of 3 mm.) and 7 mm. broad ; generally they are smaller. The flowers are almost sessile in the leaf-axils. The bracteoles are 1|5 mm. long. The calyx-tube is 10 mm. long, and 2 mm. in diameter at the throat, becoming slightly narrower downwards.