170 BOTANY OF CONGO.
collected in the Nicobar Islands, this would appear to be a variable circumstance.
Gloriosa supcrha, L. which seems to be very general along the whole of the west coast of Africa, is considered as a variety of the Indian plant by M. Lamarck. This African variety has no doubt given rise to the estabhshment of the second species of the genus, namely G. simplecc, which Lin- noeus adopted from Miller } and which Miller founded on the account sent to hira by M. Richard, of the Trianon Garden, along with the seeds of what he called a new Gloriosa, brought from Senegal by Adanson, and having blue flowers. Miller had no opportunity of determining the correctness of this account ; for though the seeds vege- tated, the plant died without flowering ; but he added a character not unlikely to belong to the seedling plants of G. superba, namely the want of tendrils. Adanson himself, 4S3] indeed, notices what he considers a new species of Gloriosa in Seneo;al,^ but he savs nothinp^ of the colour of its flowers, which he would hardly have omitted, had they been blue : that his plant, however, was not without tendrils may be inferred from their entering into the character he afterwards gave of the genus,^ as well as from M. Lamarck's a<3Count of his variety /3 of G. superba,* which he seems to have described from Adanson's specimens. And as no one has since pretended to have seen a species of this genus, either with blue flowers, or leaves without tendrils, G. sim- plex, which has long been considered as doubtful, may be safely left out of all future editions of the Species Plantarum. As the supposed G. superba of this coast, however, seems to difler from the Indian plant in the greater length and more equal diameter of its capsule, it may possibly be a distinct species, though at present I am inclined to con- sider it as only a variety.
Sphenoclea zeyJanica, Gcert. I have compared this plant from Congo with specimens from India, Java, China,
1 Gloriosa 2, Mill. Bid. ed. 7.
^ Nouvelle espcce do Metlionica, HisL Nat. du, Senegal., p. 137.
^ Mendoni, Fam. des Plant. 2, ;?. 48.
- Enci/c. Method. Bo tan. 4, ^. 134.
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