Maerua
(said to be derived from Meru, the Arabian name). ORD. Capparideae. A genus comprising about half-a-score species of stove or greenhouse, unarmed, often glaucous shrubs, natives of tropical Africa, Arabia, and the West Indies. Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary, corymbose, or racemose; calyx funnel-shaped, with a persistent tube and four lobes, valvate, deciduous; petals none, or four, inserted at the mouth of the calyx. Leaves simple, entire; petioles articulated with the branches; stipules small. The undermentioned species, which is probably the only one in cultivation, thrives in a compost of loam and peat. Cuttings of nearly ripened wood will root in sand, under a glass, in heat.
M. oblongifolia (oblong-leaved). fl. white, terminal, in simple depressed racemes; petals shorter than the calyx lobes, oblong-linear, acuminate. June. l. oblong-lanceolate, very obtuse and mucronulate at the apex, glaucescent, shortly petiolate, 1 1/2in. to 2 1/2in. long, nearly 1/2in. broad, h. 4ft. Abyssinia, 1822. Stove. SYNS. Capparis heteroclita and Niebuhria oblongifolia.