280 OBSERVATIONS ON PLANTS
several octandrous species of which, belonging to tlie same section, are ah'cady known.
Another species of Capparis, also from Bonion, exists in the herbarinm. It appears to be undescribed, and to belong to M. De Candolle's first section of the genns ; bnt the specimen is too imperfect to be satisfactorily determined.
Both these species have acnlei stipulares, and it may here be remarked that all the plants belonging either to Cappa- ris, or to any of the genera of the order whose fruit is a beny, in which these aculeiare found, are indigenous either to Asia, Africa, or Europe; while all the aculeated Cleomes, with the exception of perhaps a single African species, are natives of equinoctial America.
MiEiiUA iiiGiDA. This plant, of which flowering s])eci- mens were collected at Aghedem, certainly belongs to Forskal's genus Moerua, adopted by Vahl and De Candolle ; and I believe it to be a species distinct from the three already published. It is very nearly related, however, to a fourth species [M. Senegalensis nod.), of which I received a specimen from M. Desfontaines. M. De Candolle has placed the genus Maerua at the end of Capparideae, between which and Passiflorea^ he considers it intermediate. This view of its relation to these two orders I cannot adopt. To me it appears trnly a Capparidea, having very little affinity with Passiflorese, to which it seems to approach in one point only, namely, the corona of the calyx. But of a similar corona rudiments exist in several other African Cap- parideae, and from some of these the genus Maerua is Avith difficulty distinguished.^
' M.E11UA.
Maerua. Forsk. Arab. p. 101. Fc/M. ^ymh. 1, p. 3G. De Cand. Prodr. 1, p. 254.
Char. Gen. Cah/x tubulosus : Umbo 4-partito, restivatione simplici serie valvata : corona faucis pctaloidca. Vetahi nulla. Stipes genitalium eloiigatus. Htamina nuincrosa. Pericarpiiim (siliquiforme ?) baccatuni.
Frutices inermes., p2ibe, dam addt, simplici. Folia simplicia coriacea : peliolo cum denticnlo rami articulalo : stipulis mimUissimis setaceis.
M.13RUA. rir/ida, coijmbis termiualibus paucifloris, foliis obovatis crassis rigidis aveniis nervo obsoleto, corona lacero-multipartita.
Desc. Frutex ? 7?6^w«stricti teretes teuuissiiiiepubesceutes. i^o//^ sparsa,
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