Pharnaceum
(named after Pharnaces, King of Pontus, who lived contemporary with Caesar and Pompey). SYN. Ginginsia. ORD. Ficoideae. A genus comprising about sixteen species of annual or perennial, low, erect or decumbent, greenhouse, South African herbs, often suffrutescent at base. Flowers greenish or purplish, in axillary, racemiform, umbelliform, or compound or terminal-pedunculate cymes. Capsule membranous. Leaves alternate or pseudo-verticillate, linear, acicular, obvoate, or spathulate, often setiferous at base. The species possess little beauty, and are more suited to botanical than to horticultural collections. Those mentioned below thrive in a compost of sandy loam and peat, and cuttings root readily in the same kind of soil, if placed under a glass.
P. incanum (hoary). fl. white inside, green without, disposed in proliferous umbels; common peduncles very long. May to October. l. scattered, or four in a whorl, with bundles of smaller leaves rising from the axillae, smooth, linear; stipules pilose. Stems erect; branches white from stipules. h. 6in. 1782. Shrubby. (B. M. 1883.) P. lineare (linear). fl. reddish, in panicled, terminal and lateral umbels. May and June. l. linear, obtuse, six to eight in a whorl. Stems prostrate; branches dichotomous 1795. Shrubby (A. B. R. 326.)