HARRIET MARGARET LOUISA BOLUS
THE FLOWERING PLANTS OF
SOUTH AFRICA.
A MAGAZINE CONTAINING HAND-COLOURED FIGURES WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF THE
FLOWERING PLANTS INDIGENOUS TO SOUTH AFRICA.
EDITED BY
E. P. PHILLIPS, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S.(S. Afr.),
chief. Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Pretoria;
and Director of the Botanical Survey of the Union of South Africa.
VOL. XXIII
The veld which lies so desolate and hare
Will blossom into cities white and fair,
And pinnacles will pierce the desert air,
And sparkle in the sun.
R. C. Mackie’s “ Ex Unitath Vires."
L. REEVE & CO., Ltd.,
BANKET HOUSE, BROOK, ASHFORD, KENT
SOUTH AFRICA:
J. L. VAN SCHAIK LTD.
P.O. BOX 734, PRETORIA
1943.
All rigliU reserved
, — .-V,--- ... rri
MARY GUNN U8RARV
lATlONAL BOTANIOAI. tN§TlfUTfe
private BA©
PRETORIA 600=1
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH _
PBINTED IN GBEAT BBITAIN
TO
HARRIET MARGARET LOUISA BOLUS
B.A., D.SO., F.E.S. (S. AFE.)
NIECE OF THE LATE DE. HAEEY BOLUS AND BY HIM
APPOINTED HONOEAEY CUEATOE FOE LIFE OF THE BOLUS
HEEBAEIUM, UNIVEESITY OF CAPE TOWN, THIS VOLUME
IS DEDICATED IN EECOGNITION OP HEE LONG AND USEFUL
SEEVICE TO SOUTH AFEICAN BOTANY, INCLUDING MANY
CONTEIBUTIONS TO OUE PAGES AND FOE HEE UNTIEING
EFFOETS TO INCULCATE A LOVE AND APPEECIATION OF
PLANTS AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE,
Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, Peetoeia,
October, 1943.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2016
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INDEX TO VOLUME XXIII
PLATE
ALOE ORTHOLOPHA 882
ALOE REITZII 911
ALOE TIDMARSHI 910
BARLERIA BREMEKAMPI 893
BUCHENROEDERA MULTIFLORA . . . .883
CEROPEGIA INSIGNIS 902
CEROPEGIA MULTIFLORA 909
OLIVIA CAULESCENS 891
CRASSULA BARBATA 881
CRASSULA HEMISPHAERICA 892
CRASSULA LACTEA 888
CRASSULA NAMAQUENSIS 908
CRINUM BUPHANOIDES 878
CRYPTOSTEPHANUS VANSONII 885
DICHROSTACHYS GLOMERATA . . . .894
DRIMIA ALTA 890
EUPHORBIA EXCELSA 886
GARDENIA CORNUTA 918
GLADIOLUS ROGERSn 919
GLADIOLUS VENUSTUS 895
HYPERICUM SONDERI 897
KANAHIA GLABERRIMA 900
MASSONIA PUSTULATA 915
MIMETES STOKOEI 916
NAUTOCHILUS LABIATUS 901
PROTEA SUBPULCHELLA 920
RHYNCHELYTRUM REPENS 914
SCHIZOCARPHUS GERRARDI 906
SCHIZOCARPHUS NERVOSUS 904
SCHIZOCARPHUS RIGIDIFOLIUS . . . .905
SCILLA GLAUCESCENS 912
SCILLA LANCEAEFOLIA 913
SCILLA MEGAPHYLLA 898
SCILLA ZEBRENA 899
SPATALLA GALPmn 889
STAPELIA MEINTJIESII 917
STRIGA ELEGANS 907
TECOMARIA CAPENSIS 903
TENARIS CHLORANTHA 884
TRICHOCAULON OFFICINALE 896
F
S8f.
Plate 881.
CRASSULA BARBATA.
Ca'pe Province.
Crassulaceae.
Crassula barbata Thunb. in Nov. Acta Nat. Cur., 4 (1778) ; Harv.
in FI. Cap., 2, 349 (1861-62) ; Schonland in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr. 17,
248 (1929).
Most botanical writers who mention Crassula barbata
draw attention to some feature of its remarkable nature. The
small lateral rosettes of leaves are almost completely obscured
by the densely placed long hairs which diverge from the tips
and margins of the leaves, giving the artist no mean task in
conveying the correct impression. These hairs not only afford
protection to the plant from the rigours of its often arid habitat,
but also, according to Marloth in his Flora of South Africa,
assume the important function of water absorption. Marloth
states that the hairs are capable of absorbing dew ; his experi-
ments having shown that they may absorb in a single night
more water in this way than the plant loses by transpiration
in a week. He also records that a plant after being kept in a
book for nine months sprouted and produced flowers. In her
book Plants and Their Ways in South Africa, 1906, Bertha
Stoneman refers to “ spine protected leaves and bracts,” but
this is an unnecessary exaggeration, since the hairs are soft
and not comparable with spines.
Although C. barbata is so distinctive in habit it has on more
than one occasion been confused with other species in her-
barium records. Two species concerned are C. hemisphaerica
Thunb. and C. tomentosa Thunb. : the former is more nearly
related botanically to C. barbata, but the latter shows a closer
general resemblance when in flower. It is my opinion that
figure 88, 2, in Marloth’s Das Kapland, 1908, purporting to be
C. barbata, shows C. barbata in flower in the centre, surrounded
by small plants of C. tomentosa. All three species mentioned
above were collected in the Cape Province by the early traveller
and botanist Carl Peter Thunberg, who described them in
1778 on his return to Sweden. They have been recorded
several times since, and in 1941 were collected together on a
rocky hillside in the Laingsburg district by Mr. C. Wilmot.
Specimens from him of both C. barbata and C. tomentosa
flowered at the same time in September 1942 at the Division
of Botany and Plant Pathology, but it was only possible to
have the former figured. C. hemisphaerica flowered in Novem-
ber, and will appear later in this volume.
Description : — A tufted succulent plant producing 1 to several rosettes
of leaves; rosettes compact, flattish, each developing up to 30 leaves,
maturing and flowering in 2-4: years, thereafter dying and being replaced by
other rosettes. Leaves 2-5 cm. long, 2-3 cm. broad, 4 mm. thick, broadly
ovate-oblong, bearded on the margin, thinly at the base and densely towards
the apex with long white hairs 3-6 mm. long; the hairs on the margin
spreading at right angles in both directions and radiating from the apex,
often almost completely obscuring the young leaves, but gradually falling
with age. Flowering stem quadrangular at the base, arising from the centre
of the rosette of leaves, 24-30 cm. tall, unbranched, producing about 16
opposite pairs of cymules in the axils of bracts ; bracts leaf- like, decreasing
in size towards the apex of the inflorescence, furnished with similar hairs to
the leaves and a tuft from the apex ; the cymes shortly pedunculate, bi-
bracteate below the dense subglobose clusters of flowers 1-1-5 cm. diameter,
those somewhat above the base being the largest. Flowers subsessile,
usually subtended by two bracteoles of different sizes, smaller than the sepals.
Calyx about 3 mm. long, united for the basal ^ ; the lobes ovate-oblong, 1-5
mm. broad, fleshy, glabrous. Corolla in bud pink-tipped, white within,
sweetly scented, 5 mm. long; petals united for 1-5 mm. at the base; the
lobes 1-5 mm. broad, ovate, recurved with a minute mucro behind the apex.
Carpels 2-5 mm. long, not elongated into a style but terminated by an
obhque dorsaUy situated stigma. Scales yellow, transversely oblong, less
than 0-5 mm. long. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27031.) — R. A.
Dyer.
Plate 881. — Fig. 1, plant, life size; 2, flower, enlarged; 3, carpel and
minute scale at base, dorsal view; 4, carpel and scale, side view.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
8S2
E.K.Burges del
Plate 882,
ALOE ORTHOLOPHA.
Southern Rhodesia.
Liliaceae.
Aloe ortholopha Christian and Milne-Redhead in Kew Bull. 1933, p. 478.
It was as recently as 1933 that this spectacular species of
Aloe from the Umvukwe Hills was introduced to science. It
was the first to be described by Mr. H. Basil Christian (joint
author), who is making a special study of the tropical and sub-
tropical species of Aloe. Since then Mr. Christian has de-
scribed over a score of species, several of them in this publica-
tion. A visit to his rock garden at Ewanrigg, near Salisbury,
where aloes sent in from all parts of Africa are grown, will
reveal that there are still many more to be described. At this
stage, therefore, a bird’s-eye view of the tropical species is
not possible. The South African species, on the other hand,
are comparatively well known and, while the probable relation-
ships of A. ortholopha can be traced down to the Cape through
several species, only one of its northern relatives has come to
light. This is Aloe Mawii Christian, described in the Journal
of South African Botany, October, 1940. It comes from the
Mlanje mountains, Nyasaland, and across the border in
Mogambique on Tumbini Hill. The raceme in this species is
very similar to that of A. ortholopha, being almost horizontal
and having strongly secund flowers; also the shape of the
flower is similar and the stamens and style are exserted in the
same way. It differs in the plant being caulescent, the leaves
long- acuminate, spreading and recurved (not glaucous) and
the usually unbranched inflorescence. In the above men-
tioned journal Mr. Christian established a sub-section Ortholo-
phae in the section Pachydendron to take the species A.
ortholopha, A. Mawii and A. globuligemma. The last men-
tioned occurs in the northern Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia
and in leaf character its resemblance to A. ortholopha is
remarkable. This description of the section is followed by an
interesting account of the seeming gradation of these related
species from A. ferox, Cape Province, through A. spectabilis,
Natal and A. Marlothii, Transvaal. If the more usual theory
of the probable direction of the line of evolution is taken into
account the sequence of the species should be in the reverse
order ending with A. ferox in the south,
Mr. Christian states that plants of A. ortholopha were
first brought to Salisbury about 1927 by Mr. G. Main waring
of the Department of Agriculture. Later the opportunity
occurred for Mr. Christian to visit the Mtoroshonga Pass in the
Umvukwe Hills, where they had been found, and he writes
that they occurred there in large numbers and that the most
common colour of the flowers is a “ deep blood red.” The crest-
like arrangement of the flowers suggested the specific epithet.
The plant figured on the accompanying plate was sent to
the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology by Mr. Christian
and it flowered here in August, 1942.
The metallic bloom on the leaves and peduncle together
with the bright orange perianth and purple filaments makes it
a most striking and colourful subject for the rock garden.
Descbiption — Plant stemless. Leaves glaucous, about 30 in a dense
rosette, spreading-erect, slightly incurved, ovate-lanceolate, up to 50 cm.
long, about 10 cm. wide and 1-2 cm. thick, covered with a bloom ; apex acute ;
margin with a reddish brown horny rim armed with deltoid teeth 3 mm. long
and up to 15 mm. apart; interspaces straight; upper surface somewhat flat
below and broadly concave in upper part; lower surface convex. Inflor-
escence 60 cm. high, 3-branched; peduncle compressed 3 cm. wide on inner
flat surface, dorsal surface rounded, covered with a bloom ; branches about
40 cm. long, sub-horizontal; sterile bracts ovate, 1 cm. long and 1 cm. broad
at base, scarious, 1 to 5-nerved. Flowers secund ; bracts ovate, acute up to
1 cm. long, scarious, enveloping the pedicels; pedicels short and thick
about 5 mm. long, jointed at the apex ; perianth bright orange-red, cylindric-
ventricose, somewhat trigonous, 35-40 mm. long, about 6 mm. diameter
at the base widening to 9 mm. diameter about the middle, then narrowing
to 7 mm. at the throat ; tube 11 mm. long ; outer segments entirely orange,
about 27 mm. long and 6 mm. wide, somewhat canaliculate, apices recurved;
inner segments as long as the outer but slightly broader with an orange keel
and the overlapped sides whitish, apices recurved, dark orange. Stamens
becoming exserted for up to 2 cm. of their length and retracting after fertiliza-
tion ; filaments compressed yellow with the exserted portion purplish brown ;
anthers 4 mm. long, orange-yeUow. Style orange-yellow exserted for up to
2-5 cm. diverging from the ripening anthers. Ovary green, about 8 mm. long,
4 mm. diam. (National Herbarium, No. 27033.) — I. C. Verdoorn.
Plate 882. — Fig. 1, plant, reduced; 2, flower; 3, longitudinal section of
the flower.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
Plate 883.
BUCHENROEDERA MULTIFLORA.
Cape Province.
Leguminosae.
Buchenroedera multiflora E. & Z., Enum. p. 195 (1836) ; El.
Cap. vol. 2, p. 92 (1861).
The genus Buchenroedera was established by the two South
African botanists Ecklon and Zeyher and named in honour of
W. L. V. Buchenroeder, who was a friend of theirs at the
Cape. The genus is allied to the large genus Aspalathus, but
differs from it mainly in having petioled leaves and the presence
of stipules. Twenty-three species of Buchenroedera have been
described, all of which, except one species which occurs in
tropical Africa, are confined to South Africa. The species
range from the Uitenhage district through the coastal belt to
Natal. Buchenroedera multiflora is common in the Uitenhage
and Albany districts. While it possesses no particular horti-
cultural interest, we are glad to include it as a representative
of a typical South African genus. The specimen figured was
grown at the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology from a
rooted cutting collected by Mr. M. de Vries at Amabele in the
Stutterheim district of the Cape Province.
Description : — A virgate shrub with lax stems up to 3-1
m. high which bear numerous slender branchlets 1-8 cm. long
and which when older are usually for the greater part bare,
due to the falling of the leaves ; branchlets villous, often with
the persistent stipules on the bare portion. Leaves digitately
3-foliolate ; petiole 2*5 mm. long, villous ; leaflets 7 mm. long,
3 mm. broad, lanceolate, with a distinct apiculus, concave on
the upper face, densely silky-villous. Stipules much shorter
than the petiole, villous. Inflorescence a subcapitate spike.
Flowers light yellow, shortly pedicelled. Bracts ovate, longer
than the pedicel, silky-villous. Calyx densely viscid- vill ous ;
tube somewhat urceolate, 3 mm. diameter; lobes U5 mm. long.
shorter than the tube, ovate, subacuminate. Vexillum 4 mm.
broad, ovate, with the margins inflexed above, densely villous
outside and with a linear claw 2-5 mm. long and 1 mm. broad;
wings 3-5 mm. long, oblong, with a linear claw 2-5 mm. long,
with a few long hairs on the limb; keel 3*5 mm. long, 1*75
mm. broad, plano-convex in outline, gibbous, villous outside
and with the straight margin minutely pectinate, with a linear
claw 3 mm. long. Stamens monadelphous ; anthers unequal ;
pollen dark orange. Ovary sessile, with several ovules on
evident funicles, densely villous, style terete, slightly curved ;
stigma terminal, subcapitate. (National Herbarium, Pretoria,
No. 27044.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 883. — Fig. 1, a single leaf with stipules; 2, a single flower with
bract; 3, vexillum; 4, wing; 5, one petal of keel ; 6, stamens; 7, pistil.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
5S4
P.Badenhorst del.
Plate 884.
TENARIS CHLORANTHA.
Transvaal.
AsCLEPIAD ACBAE .
Tenaris chlorantha Schltr. in Engl. Jahrb. 20, Beibl. 51, 44 June
1895; ex K. Sebum, in Engl. Pflanzenfam. 4, 2, 296 May 1895 (nomen);
N.E. Br. in El. Cap. 5, 1, 797 (1909).
Although specimens of this plant were collected on the
Magaliesberg in the Transvaal as early as 1840 by the travellers
Burke and Zeyher, it was not authentically named until 1895,
when Schlechter described plants of his own collecting. One
of his specimens came from the neighbourhood of Pretoria,
whence also the plant here figured, collected by C. A. Smith
in November, 1926. The colour of the fiowers has been
recorded previously, variously between green and brown-
purple. The colour of the flower illustrated here, which
incidentally is the first published illustration of the species,
suggests that the above records are correct and that there is
considerable variation in this character in the veld.
The name Macropetalum Benthamii is stated by Brown in
FI. Cap. l.c. to refer to the same species. It was also published
for the first time in May, 1895, but without a valid description,
for which reason the question of priority of the specific
epithet falls away.
The genus Tenaris, consisting of about 7 species, is spar-
ingly distributed in the short grass-veld of southern and
tropical Africa. It is practically unknown in cultivation,
owing to the small and comparatively inconspicuous flowers.
The genus shows a close affinity to the better-known genera
Ceropegia and Brachystelma, both of which have already been
illustrated in these pages.
Description : — Tuber depressed up to 6 cm. diameter.
Stem purplish towards base, greenish above, single from each
tuber annually, about 40 cm. high, unbranched or occasionally
with 1-2 lateral branches in the upper half, leafy from the
middle or lower. Leaves in 7-12 pairs, ascending-spreading,
3-7 cm. long, 0-5-1 ’5 mm. broad, linear-filiform or linear,
acute, glabrous; Flowers usually in fascicles of 3-7 at the
nodes of the uppermost ^ or upper | of the stem. Peduncles
0-8 mm. to 14 mm. long, slender, glabrous. Sepals 1-1-5
mm. long, lanceolate, mth a few hairs or glabrous. Corolla
pale greenish-yellow on the outer and inner surfaces with
red-brown marking on the inner surface, particularly towards
the centre (Smith); tube 1-1-5 mm. long, campanulate;
lobes 5-6-5 mm. long, about 1 mm. broad at the base,
tapered to the apex with recurved margins with a very min-
utely pustulate or subpapillate inner surface. Outer corona-
lobes minute, notched ; inner corona-lobes subulate, incumbent
on the backs of the filaments, shorter than or sub equalling
them. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 6110.) — R. A.
Dyer.
Plate 884. — Fig. 1, flower, enlarged;
enlarged.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
2, staminal column with coronas.
E K.Burgea del.
Plate 885.
CRYPTOSTEPHANUS VANSONII.
Southern Rhodesia.
Amaryllidaceae.
Cryptostephanus Vansonii Verdoorn sp. nov. ab C. densifloro plantis
robustioribus, coronae lobis 6 bifidis, staminibus 2 seriatis valde differt.
Caudex subbulbosus, tunicatus, ca. 10 cm. longus 2-5 cm. diam. ; radices
longi, cylindrici, ca. 5 mm. diam. subterranei vel pro parte supraterranei.
Folia 12-18, basi disticha, supra diffusa, lorata, patentio-recurva, 60 cm.
longa, 2-5 cm. lata, basi et apice leviter acuminata. Pedunculus valde
compressus, ancipitus ca. 20 cm. longus. Bracteae involucrantes paucae,
inaequales, marcentes. Umbella ca. 30-flora. Flores albi, faucibus roseo-
suffusi, circa ovarium virides ; perianthii tubus basi ovario cohaerens supra
ovarium 7 mm. longus; lobi 8 mm. longi, patentes; 3 exteriores quam
interiores leviter angustiores et apice prominente cucullata. Corona
squamis 6 bifidis flavis vel roseis 3-5 mm. longis, in faucem periantii lobis
oppositis inserta. Stamina 6, perianthii tubo 2-seriatim afiixa, inclusa;
3 inferiora subsessila ; 3 superiora filamentis 1 mm. longis. Ovarium 3-
loculare, ovula in loculos 2-4 ; stylus columnaris, 3 mm. longus. Fructus
incognitus.
S. Rhodesia : Vumba Mts., 5500 ft. alt. van Son in National Herbarium,
No. 27032.
The accompanying plate was prepared from a plant
flowering during October in Mr. G. van Son’s garden near
Pretoria. Mr. van Son states that he saw many of these plants
growing under the trees and among rocks on a southern slope
of the Vumba Mountains at about 5500 ft. They were not in
flower at the time, and the plant resembled a species of Clivia.
The flattened peduncle also suggests that genus, but the
flowers are very distinct with their spreading limbs, a corona
in the throat, and the stamens inserted in two series. The
presence of a corona indicated the genus Cryptostephanus,
which was based on a plant from near Lopollo in Angola. The
type species, C. densiflorus, is comparable with our plant in
habit of growth, and also has the flattened 2-edged peduncle.
The principal features in which it differs are that the stamens
are not 2-seriate, the corona consists of 12 lobes instead of 6,
and the perianth limbs are described as not spreading. Of
these the only difference that might be considered of generic
importance would be the 2-seriate stamens, but a precedent for
1 -seriate and 2-seriate stamens in the same genus exists in the
genus Cyrtanthus. The other species of Cryptostephanus
already described is C. haemanthoides Pax, but, judging from
the description, it is very unlike the plant figured here.*
Taking the corona as the most diagnostie character, the genus
Tulbaghia had to be considered. In this genus a corona is
present, the stamens are 2-seriate and the habit similar to that
of our plant, but the ovary is definitely superior (for this reason
until recently it had been in the family Liliaceae). In our
plant the perianth surrounding the ovary is intergrown with
its walls and the ovary is considered as inferior. Therefore,
taking everything into consideration, it has been decided that
the species here described is best placed in the genus Crypto-
stephanus Welw. ex Bk. (Journ. Bot., Vol. 16, p. 193, t. 197
(1878)).
The subbulbose rootstock of C. Vansonii is hard, and for
the most part above ground, while the long eyhndric roots
creep along near the surface of the soil or in parts above it.
The dark green leaves, distichous at the base, spread out above
in several planes and are gracefully arching. The flowers
which are eontemporaneous seem rather small in comparison,
and appear to be pure white, but a close examination reveals
a delicate pink tinge about the throat, and the corona may
be yellow or pink.
Description : — Rootstock subbulbose, tunicated, about 10 cm. long and
2-5 cm. diameter, for the most part above ground ; roots cylindric, 5 mm.
diameter, creeping near soil surface and partially above ground. Leaves
12 to 18, distichous at base spreading above, lorate, up to 60 cm. long and
2-5 cm. broad, slightly narrowing towards base and apex, spreading recurved.
Peduncle about 20 cm. long, strongly compressed, ancipitous. Spathe-
valves several, unequal, withered. Pedicels green, terete, up to 3 cm. long.
Flowers about 30 in an umbel, white tinged with pink about the throat,
the basal portion surrounding the ovary and partly fused with its walls
greenish; perianth-tube from above ovary 7 mm. long; segments about
8 mm. long, spreading ; the 3 outer slightly narrower than the 3 inner and
with more obviously hooded apices. Corona-lobes 6, bifid, each lobe inserted
at the base of a perianth-segment, yellow or pink, about 3-5 mm. long.
Anthers in 2 rows inserted in the tube ; the 3 lower subsessile ; 3 upper with
filaments less than 1 mm. long. Ovary 3-chambered, ovules 2 to 4 in each
chamber; style columnar, 3 mm. long. — I. C. Verdoorn.
Plate 885. — Fig. 1, whole plant; 2, distichous leaf bases; 3, flower cut
open and spread out.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
* Through the courtesy of the Curator of the Bolus Herbarium I was
enabled to examine the type specimen of Cryptostephanus ? Herrei Leighton
published in S.A. Card. & Co. Life (1932). In a note on the sheet the author
subsequently expressed the view that the plant should not be classified in the
genus Cryptostephanus, and I agree with this view. The generic classi-
fication is still under consideration.
1
Plate 886.
EUPHORBIA EXCELSA.
Transvaal.
EuPHORBIACE AE .
Euphorbia excelsa W. D. & S. Succulent Euphorbieae 2, 919 (1941).
The close general resemblance to each other of several
arborescent species of Euphorbia in South Africa causes fairly
widespread uncertainty in their identification. The position
is not made simpler by the considerable latitude in the shape
of vegetative organs which manifests itself. For instance,
the number of angles of the branches is rarely constant, E.
triangularis Desf. having 3-5 angles, E. tetragona Haw. 3-6
angles, and E. excelsa 3-5 angles. In the past the size of the
plant, number of angles of branches and such-like characters
were considered of primary importance in classification, and it
was not until the publication of The Succulent Euphorbieae
that the inflorescence came into greater prominence in this
respect. To the general observer, however, the inflorescence is
of a relatively insignificant nature. Even in the inflorescence
there is a certain plasticity in its development, but the cyathia
are arranged in various patterns, the basic plan of which
decides the group into which a species is classified.
The peculiarities of the inflorescence of E. excelsa were
discussed when the species was originally described. No new
information about it has come to light, but a plant of probably
nearer affinity than any South African species is being investi-
gated from Rhodesia. Capt. R. H. R. Stevenson has for-
warded a flowering twig from a plant equal to the one shown
in figure 1091 of The Succulent Euphorbieae, the cyme
pattern of which agrees closely with that of E. excelsa.
The coloured illustration on the accompanying plate was
made from material collected by Dr. F. van der Merwe in
August, 1940, east of Malips Drift in the Lydenburg district.
The pencil drawing of a part of a cyme was made later by
another artist from preserved material from the same area.
Description : — A tree attaining a height of about 15 m.
with a bole 12 m. but usually only about 10 m. high, with a
dense crown of branches; young plants with a glaucous
appearance which is less conspicuous on the trees. Stem or
trunk 6-7-angled, subcylindric with age, up to 25 cm. diameter,
very rarely producing stem-like branches. Branches arising
more or less in whorls, 1 m. or more long, spreading-ascending,
the older ones gradually withering and falling, often rebranched,
usually 4-angled, nearly square, rarely 3- or 5-angled, 2-5-3 cm.
thick, slightly constricted at intervals of between 8-15 cm.,
the secondary branches with constrictions 5-8 cm. apart,
1-5-2 cm. thick; segments with parallel sides, the angles with
a continuous horny margin, and paired spines which become
obsolete in aged trees. Cymes one from each flowering eye,
subsessile, arising slightly above the spine pairs. Inflorescence
of a solitary cyme from each flowering eye, subsessile, usually
consisting of 5 cyathia, the central one male or rarely bisexual,
the 4 lateral ones usually bisexual and disposed 2 at right
angles and 2 parallel to the axis, or occasionally one or more
of the lateral cyathia may be male also and then will be found
to be supplemented by an additional bisexual cyathium from
the axil of one of the bracts, all densely clustered. Involucre
cup-shaped, about 5 mm. in diameter with 5 contiguous,
elliptic-oblong glands and 5 fimbriate lobes. Ovary pedicellate ;
the pedicel moderately stout and only slightly curved ; styles
about 2 mm. long, free almost to the base, with bifid tips.
Capsule exserted on a pedicel about 5 mm. long, moderately
3-angled (occasionally 4-angled as shown in one capsule in the
illustration) 5 mm. long, 8-9 mm. in diameter; seed about 3
mm. long and slightly longer than broad, smooth, brown.
(National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27030.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 886. — Fig. 1, fruiting branch, natural size; 2, capsule (by M. E.
Comiell) ; 3, angle margin of young plant ; 4, cyme with abaxial branch
removed (spirit material) ; 5, habit (by Edith K. Burges).
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
5.9/
Plate 887.
CRINUM BUPHANOIDES.
Angola and Transvaal.
Amaryllidaceae.
Crinum buphanoides Welw. ex Baker. Journ. Bot. 1878, 195.
The species Crinum buphanoides, was described from a
specimen collected by Welwitsch “ in sandy woods ” at Pungo
Andongo in Angola. In the Transvaal it has been recorded in
sandy thorn-veld from near the Blaauwberg and Messina in
the north-west and also from Potgietersrust and Naboom-
spruit further south. The specimen figured here was collected
by Mr. G. W. Reynolds north-east of Naboomspruit on the
road to Potgietersrust in October, 1942. The large bulbs are
deeply embedded in the ground, and are produced into a long
neck, which for the greater part is also underground. The
leaves are usually found to be eaten off, presumably by cattle.
This seems generally to be the case with species of Crinum,
none of which has been regarded as poisonous to stock. A
specimen of Crinum buphanoides in the National Herbarium
collected by E. G. Galpin on the banks of the Palala river near
Naboomspruit has complete young leaves, which show that
they taper gradually to an acute apex and the margins have a
narrow cartilaginous border as on the leaf figured here, but
the ciliation is not present. This may be due to the leaf being
young, or possibly the ciliation is present only towards the
base of the leaf. On Plate 532 in Vol. 14 of this work another
species of Crinum {C. crispum) was figured. It will be noted
that in that species the perianth-lobes do not spread from the
base, as they do in Crinum buphanoides, but at first form a
chalice or trumpet, and only the upper portion of the lobe
curls back. These characters divide the species of Crinum
into two sections : the “ Stenaster ” and the “ Codono-
crinum ”, and the plant figured here belongs to the former
section. In the Flora Capensis the section Stenaster is not
represented, whereas in the Flora of Tropical Africa there are
17 species included in it. From the meagre descriptions it
would have been impossible to identify our plant, but for-
tunately a specimen from near the Blaauwberg was identified
at Kew as C. buphanoides evidently having been compared
with the type or an authentically named specimen. The
description of the species fits our plant quite well. A figure
in Curtis Bot. Mag. (t. 6783) of Crinum leucophyllum Bkr.
appears to be very like the plant shown here, but a study of
the description shows, for one thing, that the leaves are very
much broader. The two plants are, however, obviously
closely related.
Description : — Bulb about 15 cm. diameter, produced
into a neck about 15 cm. long, tunics dark brown, flesh
beneath white and purplish pink. Leaves about 8, somewhat
glaucous green (grazed dovm to base) distichous, at base deeply
channelled and about 7-9 cm. broad, with a very narrow
cartilaginous edge ciliate -with minute cartilaginous scales.
Peduncle lateral, 30 cm. long, compressed, 3 cm. wide and T3
cm. thick, flat on one surface and slightly concave on the other,
edges rounded, green with purplish pink suffusion at base.
Spathe-valves deltoid, 2, equal, 7 cm. long and 4 cm. broad
at base ; bracteoles among the flowers white, subulate, about
5 cm. long. Umbel of about 30 flowers. Flowers white,
suffused in part with dull pmk. Pedicels 2-5-4 cm. long,
slightly longitudinally compressed. Perianth-tube white or
greenish white, slender, cylindric, up to 8 cm. long ; segments
white on mner face or suffused with pale purplish pink,
spreading, 4-5-5 cm. long, 7-8 mm. wide, dorsally keeled, at
first flat, then becoming canaliculate and embracing the fila-
ments at the base. Stamens inserted at the throat of the
corolla; filaments white, becoming purplish-pink towards
the apex, kneed at point of insertion, spreading, 4 cm. long;
anthers up to 9 mm. long. Ovary green, with several super-
posed ovules; style very slender, white becoming purplish
towards the apex, over-topping the perianth-segments and
stamens. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27058.) — I. C.
Verdoorn.
Plate 887. — Fig. 1, bulb and leafy stem (leaves cut off) ; 2, longitudinal
section of throat of perianth showing attachment of the stamens ; 3, longi-
tudinal section of the ovary; 4, top portion of style with stigma, much
enlarged.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
S88
E.K.Bur|es del.
Plate 888,
CRASSULA LACTEA.
Cafe Province.
Crassulaceae.
Crassula lactea Ait. Hort. Kew ed. 1, 396 (1789); Harv. in El. Cap.,
2, 337 (1861-62) ; Schonland in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr. 17, 199 (1929).
One might be expected to apologise for adding yet another
illustration to the already considerable number which have
appeared of this species, eight, at least, in colour. The
number of illustrations is to some extent a reflexion of its
popularity in cultivation in European gardens since its intro-
duction not later than 1774. It was in this year that Masson,
the first Kew gardener to visit South Africa, sent the plants
to Kew, which were described for the first time in Aiton’s
Hortus Kewensis (1789). The distribution of Crassula lactea
is mainly in the dryish scrub-veld of the eastern Cape Province
extending into Natal ; thus it did not come within the range
of the earliest botanical collectors at the Cape. It is an
attractive plant, but certainly not of outstanding beauty, and
the main reason for its popularity lies elsewhere. It is an
easily grown and free flowering plant, to use a phrase from
J. R. Brown’s account in the Cactus and Succulent Journal,
March, 1942.
Our illustration was made from a plant collected near
Grahamstown by Miss G. Britten and forwarded to the
Division of Botany and Plant Pathology, where it flowered in
August, 1942,
There has been very little misunderstanding of the species
during its long history in cultivation, but there has been a
constant change of opinion on the question of the authorship
of the name. It was common knowledge that Alton, head
gardener of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, took plants to
the British Museum to have them classified, firstly by Solander
and later by Dryander, because there was at that time no
herbarium at Kew. The two scholars prepared descriptions
of new plants for Alton, and it was Dryander who piloted
tlie first edition of Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis through the press.
Even so, neither his nor Solander’s name appears on the title-
page. Therefore, Alton must be regarded as the author of
any new names unless otherwise stated in the text. No
contrary statement appears for species of Crassula. It was
argued later that as Solander and Dryander had drawn up the
descriptions they should receive credit for it, with the result
that in most standard works of reference we find the citation
“ Solander ” or “ Dryander in Ait. Hort., Kew.” The subject
has been dealt with by Britten and Baker in Journ. Bot. 35,
477 (1897) and by Britten ibid. 50, suppl. 3 (1912). Unfor-
tunately Schonland helped to perpetuate the misconception
in his revision of the genus in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr. 17
(1929), but Stapf in Index Londinensis 2 (1930) lists our
species simply as Crassula lactea Ait.
DEScmPTiON : — Succulent, perennial plant branched from
the base. Branches ascending-spreading when young, becom-
ing procumbent with age or occasionally hanging over rock
ledges in nature, about 75 mm. diameter near the base; the
epidermal layer on the older portions splitting up and having
a scaly appearance. Leaves connate, 4-6 cm. long, 2-5-3 cm.
broad, 0-5 cm. thick, obovate to ovate-elliptic, flat or some-
what convex on the upper surface with an upward curve in
outline, subacute or acuminate, punctate within the margin on
upper 8,nd lower surface, the pustule-like areas often appearing
as white dots ; margin entire or very minutely crenate.
Inflorescence a paniculate cyme, oblong, pedunculate, tri-
chotomously branched. Flowers 5-6-merous. Calyx-seg-
ments 1-5-2 mm. long, lanceolate. Corolla white or with
pinkish tinge, divided nearly to the base; segments about 8
mm. long, 2-5 mm. broad, lanceolate, acute, with a small
mucro behind the apex. Stamens with slender filaments
slightly shorter than the petals. Carpels about 3 mm. long,
with a slender style about 2-5 mm. long; stigma minute;
squamae minute, transversely oblong. (National Herbarium,
Pretoria, No. 27041.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 888. — Pig. 1, branch, natural size; 2, flower, enlarged; 3, two
carpels and squamae at base; 4, habit.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943,
S8S
I
Plate 889.
SPATALLA GALPINII.
Ca'pe Province.
Proteaceae.
Spatedla Galpinii Phillips in Kew Bull. 1910, p. 334; FI. Cap.
vol. V, sect. 1, p. 691 (1912).
It is not often that we receive specimens from the south-
western districts of the Cape Province that arrive sufficiently
fresh to allow them to be figured. We therefore welcome the
opportunity given us by Mr. T. P. Stokoe, who has contri-
buted many specimens from the Cape area, to illustrate a
species representing a genus typical of this area. The genus
Spatalla was founded by Salisbury in the year 1807 for a small
group in the family Proteaceae, and which is distinguished from
the genera Serruria, Sorocephalus, Spatallopsis, all of similar
general habit, by the oblique discoid stigma. Two years later
Knight published the descriptions of nine species, and since
that date twelve further species have been described. The
specimen drawn was collected by Mr. Stokoe at Viljoen’s
Drift near Elim.
Description : — A woody shrub. Branches finely pubes-
cent, at length becoming glabrous. Leaves incurved, up to
1^ in. long, needle-like, with a dark mucro; the younger
leaves hairy, becoming glabrous with age. Inflorescence a
solitary or 2-nate terminal peduncled raceme, l|-2 in. long.
Peduncles pubescent. Individual heads 1 -flowered. Peduncle
3-5 mm. long, pubescent. Involucre 2-5 mm. long, 2-lipped;
upper lip entire; lower lip 3-lobed. Perianth-tuhe 1-5 mm.
long, glabrous. Perianth-segments 4*5 cm. long, each with
linear villous claw and an ovate villous limb ; the posticous
segment slightly larger than the other three. Stamens
situated in the spoon-like depression of the limb; filaments
somewhat thickened, more or less oblong, with 2 ridges on the
inner face; anthers about as long as the filaments, with a
dark apical gland. Ovary sessile, densely villous ; style semi-
terete, shorter than the perianth-segments, arising somewhat
obliquely from the ovary, glabrous ; stigma a thickened
obovate disc, situated obliquely on the style. Hyjpogynous
scales about 1 mm. long, linear. (National Herbarium,
Pretoria, No. 27057.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 889. — Fig. 1, a single head with subtending bract ; 2, an involucre ;
3, a stamen ; 4, pistil, with hypogynous scales at the base.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
I
I
890
Plate 890.
DRIMIA ALTA.
Natal, Transvaal.
Liliaceae.
Drimia alta R. A. Dyer nom. nov. ; D. altissima Hook. f. in Curtis’s
Bot. Mag. t. 5522 (1865), non Gawl. in Curtis’s Bot. Mag., t. 1074 (1808);
Baker in FI. Cap. vol. 6, 438 (1896-1897).
There are various reasons why it may be necessary to
change the names of plants. Whenever a name change affects
a well-known garden plant, the botanist has to face severe
criticism from those who do not understand the reason or
appreciate the ultimate benefit. The endeavour of the
systematist is to establish order, although a change may result
in some temporary disorder; but each correction takes us a
step nearer the ideal of uniformity, even at the modest price
of personal inconvenience. A name change for the present
plant is necessary, since the name Drimia altissima, by which
it has been known since 1865, had already been applied to a
different species in 1808. The species was figured and
described for the first time in 1865 in Curtis’s Botanical
Magazine, t. 5522, from material sent to England from Natal
by John Sanderson. He collected many other interesting
plants, and he is sometimes confused with Mrs. Kate Saunders
who was also an enthusiastic collector in Natal.
Our plant was collected by Dr. E. Z. van der Merwe, who
in September, 1942, found many bulbs in flower, mostly near
trees, in grassy hills overlooking Pietermaritzburg. It is not
an unattractive plant, the mauve filaments of the stamens and
mauve-tinged buds contrasting pleasantly with the green of
the open corolla. D. alta extends from the midlands of Natal
into the north-eastern parts of the Transvaal.
The genus Drimia, which consists of about 45 species
restricted in their distribution to Africa, has not previously
been figured in these pages. D. alta is the largest species in
South Africa, and illustrates well the characteristic recurved
corolla lobes which distinguish Drimia from allied genera. In
common ’wdth species of Urginea, Drimia alia has the lower
bracts on the inflorescence tailed, but in Urginea the corolla
lobes are neither united nor reflexed. Several species of the
latter genus (slangkop, snake’s head) have been proved
extremely toxic to stock and very recently Drimia alia also
has given positive results.
Description : — Bulb single, or occasionally dividing into
a cluster, up to about 10 cm. in diameter, contracted into a
short neck above ground level ; scales greenish brown, tightly
packed, withering gradually to the base, with all stages on the
same bulb ; the leaves and inflorescence contemporary ; the
peduncle arising to one side of the leaf-cluster. Leaves about
10 from each bulb, oblong-lanceolate to lorate-lanceolate,
15-30 cm. long at the time of flowering ; the outer ones 4-5-6
cm. broad, withering from. the tips; the midrib forming a
slight keel on the under surface Scape up to about 1-25 m.
high, 1-2 cm. diameter, at the base, terete, very slightly
glaucous, lower portion nude, upper 45 cm. produced into a
dense raceme. Bracts membranous, greenish-speckled down
the centre ; the lower ones 2-5 cm. long with the claw sharply
reflexed and prolonged into a spur ; the apical portion above
the spur lanceolate, aristate, 2-2-5 cm. long, spreading-erect;
the spur becoming obsolete in the upper portion of the raceme.
Pedicels developing up to about 2 cm. long in fruit. Corolla
in bud with a mauvish tinge, greenish brown speckled outside
except on the white membranous margins of the lobes, about
1-75 cm. long; tube 4 mm. long; lobes oblong, strongly
reflexed to the pedicel. Filaments purple, arising from the
mouth of the corolla-tube mth their bases as broad as the
corolla-tubes, converging round the style. Ovary within the
corolla-tube ; style about 1 cm. long ; stigma truncate,
minutely 3-lobed, with a tuft of minute hairs from the apex.
Capsule 1-5 cm. long, triangular, 1 cm. broad across the angles.
(National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27060.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 890. — Fig. 1, plant, reduced; 2, leaf, natural size; 3, inflorescence,
natural size ; 4, longitudinal section of flower, enlarged.
F.P.S.A., January, 1943.
8S!7
M E Colinell del,
Plate 891.
OLIVIA CAULESCENS.
Transvaal.
AmaRYLLID ACEAE .
Olivia catilescens R. A. Dyer, sp. nov. aiiinis C. nobili Lindl. et C.
Gardeni Hook. f. ab ilia floribus paucioribus ab hac floribus minoribus ab
ambabus caulibus usque ad 45 cm. longis productis differt.
Caules non-nunquam basi ramosi usque ad 30 vel 45 cm. longi, 3-5-4 cm.
crassi. Folia plus minusve 15, disticha, lorata, 30-40 vel usque ad 90 cm.
longa, 2-5-5 cm. lata, rigida, demum decidua. Scapus circiter 30 cm. altus,
usque 1-5 latus, compressus, plano-convexus, soMus, apice circiter 15-20-
florus. Pedicelli 1-5-3-5 cm. longi. Perigonium 3-5 cm. longum, tubo
4-5 mm. longo, segmentis apicem versus leviter recurvatis, segmentis
exterioribus usque ad 7 mm. latis elliptico vel spathulato oblongis, segmentis
interioribus 1-1-2 cm. latis. Stamina summo tubo inserta decurrentia, plus
minusve perianthio aequilonga. Ovarium circiter 5 mm. longum ; stylus
filamentis aequilongus. Fructus subglobosus, circiter 1-5 cm. diametro.
Transvaal : Barberton district ; in woods, summit of Saddleback
Mtn., 4000-4650 ft., Oct., Oalpin 1102; Pilgrims Rest district; MacMac,
4500 ft.. Van der Merwe in Nat. Herb. Pretoria, 26,511 (type) ; near Graskop,
5000 ft., Nov., Reynolds 3937; Pietersburg district; Politzi, Oct., Repton,
311.
Clivia caulescens has been under observation for several
years without being definitely identified. It has been col-
lected several times in the eastern Transvaal, and plants have
flowered in October and November at the Division of Botany
and Plant Pathology during the past few years. The speci-
men figured was collected by Dr. F. Z. van der Merwe at
MacMac near the margin of forest, usually with its roots in
leaf -mould. When the species was first studied there was
some doubt as to the justification of separating it specifically
from C. nohilis Lindl. and C. Gardeni Hook. f. Both these
are stemless plants; the type specimen of the former, from
the eastern Cape Province, is characterised by a dense umbel
of comparatively small flowers ; while the latter, from Natal,
has fewer and larger flowers. Baker, in Flora Capensis 6,
228 (1896-1897), included in C. nohilis plants from Natal and
Transvaal. Whether the Natal plants are correctly placed
is open to doubt, and the specimen, Oalpin 1102 from Barber-
ton cited by Baker, is here referred to C. caulescens. Galpin
collected the flowering material in October 1890 and stated
on the label “ Stem 12-18 inches
C. nobilis and C. Gardeni were illustrated under figures
t.2856 and t.4895 of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, in 1828
and 1856 respectively. Our plant is intermediate in the
number and size of flowers between these, and differs from
both in the production of a stem up to 45 cm. long, which
is considered sufficient justification for specific separation.
Besides the above-mentioned species there is only one
other described, namely C. miniata Regel, illustrations of
which are to be found on t.4783 of Curtis’s Bot. Mag. and
Plate 13 of this work and variety flava on Plate 411. The
flowers are large and attractive.
Olivia miniata and 0. nobilis were used in artificial hybrid-
isation work ■ soon after the discovery of the former about
1854, and the number of hybrids and segregates in cultiva-
tion to-day is very 'high. Prominence to Olivia hybrids has
been given in several horticultural works, notably in Herbertia,
the Journal of the American Amaryllis Society.
Desckiption : — Stems sometimes branched from the base up to about
45 cm. tall, 3-5-4 cm. diameter, becoming leafless below with age and trans-
versely ringed by leaf-scars at intervals of 0-5-1 -2 cm. distance, with a tuft
of about 15 leaves at the apex. Leaves dark green, lorate, distichous, but
the blades spreading somewhat spirally, usually about 30-40 cm. long and
3 cm. broad, but may be up to 90 cm. long and 5 cm. broad, widening very
gradually from the base for about | its length and thence narrowed gradually
to the apex, ultimately withering and faUing. Peduncle compressed,
sharply 2-edged, unequally convex on the surfaces, about 30 cm. long,
1-5 cm. broad at the base^ narrowed to 1 cm. under the umbel. Spathe-
valves 4, membranous, unequal, more or less lanceolate, 4 cm. long. Umbel
about 15-20-flowered. Pedicels 1 -5-3-5 cm. long. Perianth deep salmon,
with the lobes green tipped with yellow on the overlapped margins, 3-5 cm.
long, with a tube 4r-5 mm. long and lobes slightly spreading at the tips;
the outer lobes elliptic to spathulate-oblong, 7 mm. broad; the inner lobes
1-1-2 cm. broad. Stamens about equaUing the perianth-lobes in length,
inserted at the throat of the perianth-tube and the base of the filaments
projecting over the mouth of the tube and fitting closely round the style.
Ovary about 5 mm. long ; style extending about the same distance as the
anthers. Fruit a berry, subglobose about 1-5 cm. in diameter. — R. A. Dyek.
Plate 891. — Fig. 1, inflorescence and apical portion of leaf, natural
size; 2, cross section near base of scape; 3, longitudinal section of flower;
4, habit sketch.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
893!
E-K.Eiu’^es del
4-
Plate 892.
CRASSULA HEMISPHAERICA.
Cape Province.
Crassulacbae.
Crassula hemisphaerica Thunb. in Nova Acta Nat. Cur., 6, 331 (1778) ;
Harv. in FI. Cap. 2, 367 (1861-62); Schonland in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr.
17, 248 (1929).
Crassula hemisphaerica Thunb. is referred to in the text
for C. harhata Thunb., which appears on the first plate in this
volume (881). The two species were recognised as close
allies by Thunberg when he first described them in 1778,
and the wisdom of his classification has not been in doubt
since. The life-cycle is more or less the same for both.
Schonland in his revision of the genus in the Transactions of
the Royal Society of South Africa 1929 refers to Marloth’s
statement about C. hemisphaerica that “ the plant takes
2-4 years to reach maturity, when, having flowered and
seeded it usually dies. Sometimes, however, it produces one
or two buds between the lower leaves, which develop into
new plants.” Although C. hemisphaerica and C. harhata are
closely related species there should be no difficulty in dis-
tinguishing between them. Besides the difference in the
shape of the rosettes, the former is very much more firm in
texture, and is glabrous, except for the densely papillose-
ciliate leaf margin; whereas the latter has comparatively
soft leaves with conspicuous long white hairs.
Schonland, in his revision, l.c., recognises three varieties
of C. hemisphaerica, namely a. typica, h. foliosa, c. recurva.
In doing this he reduced his own species C. rufopunctata to
the variety recurva. When first describing C. rufopunctata,
comparing it with C. hemisphaerica, Schonland pointed out
that “ amongst a number of distinguishing characters of the
new species may be mentioned its sessile cymules and flowers
and its broad bracts. The marginal cilia on the leaves are
longer, about 3 times the length of those in G, hemisphaerica.''’
It would seem that Schonland’s original opinion had much
to recommend it. The typical form of C. hemisphaerica is
figured here from material forwarded to the Division of
Botany and Plant Pathology from the Laingsburg district
by Mr. C. Wilmot. It flowered in November, 1942.
Description : — A tufted succulent producing 1-few hemi-
spherical rosettes of leaves 40-50 cm. in diameter, taking
two to several years to mature. Leaves about 20 in each
rosette, tightly packed in four ranks, diminishing in size
towards the inflorescence, slightly broader than long, up to
about 3 cm. long, 3*5 cm. broad, 0‘75 cm. thick, spreading,
recurved, often slightly grooved towards the apex and apicu-
late; upper surface slightly glaucous, minutely punctate,
convex; lower surface concave, fitting partly over the leaf
below ; . margin densely cartilaginous- or papillose-ciliate.
Inflorescence simple, arising from the centre of the rosette of
leaves, 10-20 cm. high, spicate-paniculate, with the lateral
cymules on peduncles 3-10 mm. long. Flowers about 3 mm.
long, somewhat bell-shaped. Calyx 1 mm. long, lobed about
half-way; lobes broadly ovate. Corolla white, lobed nearly
to the base; lobes ovate-oblong, about 3 mm. long, 1*5 mm.
broad, shghtly spreading, with a minute mucro behind the
apex. Stamens inserted at the base of the corolla and half
its length, filaments subcylindric. Carpels very slightly more
than 1 mm. long, with a small subterminal style and small
yellow squamae at their base. (National Herbarium, Pre-
toria, No. 27,059.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 892. — Fig. 1, plant natural size; 2, part of leaf showing apex,
and marginal cilia; 3, flower; 4, longitudinal section of flower; 5, 2 of
the carpels with squamae.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
M|
Plate 893.
BARLERIA BREMEKAMPI.
Transvaal ; Southern Rhodesia.
Acanthaceae.
Barleria Bremekampi Obermeyer, Ann. Transvaal Mus., 15, p. 162
(1933).
The genus Barleria is represented in Africa, Asia, and
America by over 250 species, of which number over 40 are
found in South Africa. In the Union the species are widely
distributed, but have not been recorded from the south-
western districts of the Cape Province; several species form
a characteristic element in the vegetation of the drier parts
of the country. For an account of the genus Barleria as
represented in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, reference
should be made to the paper by A. A. Obermeyer in the
publication cited above.
The family Acanthaceae according to Bolus (Sketch of the
Floral Regions of South Africa, 1905) comprises more than
1 per cent of the species found in the area which he termed
the “ Upper Region ”. We have not previously figured a
species of Barleria, though representatives of the family are
figured on Plates 77, 104, 147, 148 and 800 of this work.
The present illustration was made from a specimen collected
by Dr. F. Z. van der Merwe near Nylstroom in the Transvaal
in July 1940.
Description : — A spiny shrub. Branches brown, villous.
Leaves 0-8-1 -5 cm. long, 3-7 mm. broad, elliptic, with a small
spine at the apex, pilose. Calyx with brown veining, densely
pilose with gland-tipped hairs outside, thinly hirsute within ;
outer sepals 1-2 cm. long, 5 mm. broad, one lanceolate,
shortly spinous at the apex; the other elliptic-oblong and
shortly 3-toothed; inner sepals as long as the outer, 1-5 mm.
broad, linear. Corolla-tube 2 cm. long, cylindric and 2-5 mm.
in diameter below, funnel-shaped and 6-5 mm. in diameter
above, with three cavities at the junction of the cylindric and
funnel-shaped portions, pubescent above; limb bi-labiate;
upper lip 2-lobed, with the lobes 5 mm. long, 3*5 mm. broad,
elliptic, obtuse ; lower lip 3-lobed, with the lobes 1 cm. long,
8 mm. broad, obovate, obtuse. Developed stamens 2, inserted
at the junction of the narrow and broadened portions of the
corolla-tube; filaments 1*3 cm. long, somewhat linear,
channelled on one face, with small gland-tipped hairs at the
base; imperfect stamens 3*5 mm. long, inserted with the
developed stamens; anthers oblong, bluntly sagittate. Disc
cup-shaped, about half as long as the ovary. Ovary sessile
within the disc, 3 mm. long, ellipsoid, with 2 ovules in each
chamber, glabrous ; style 2 cm. long, terete, glabrous ; stigma
minutely 2-lobed. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No.
27,067.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 893. — Fig. 1, calyx laid open (the stiff hairs on the inner surface
are not shown) ; 2, portion of corolla laid open showing insertion of the
2 stamens and the 3 staminodes ; 3, pistil. (Figures by E. K. Burges.)
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
894-
Plate 894.
DICHROSTACHYS GLOMERATA.
Natal, Transvaal and northwards to Abyssinia, Arabia and
West Tropical Africa.
MmOSACEAE.
Dichrostachys glomerata (Forssk.) Chiov. in Ann. Bot. Roma, XIII,
409 (1915) ; Burtt Davy in FI. of the Tvaal. II, p. 349. Mimosa glomerata
Forssk. FI. Aegypt. Arab. 177 (1775) ; D. nutans Bth. in Hook. Journ. 4,
p. 353; FI. Cap. II, p. 278 (1861-1862).
In the grounds of the Division of Botany and Plant Patho-
logy on the slopes of Meintjes Kop, Pretoria, several of the
trees and shrubs that occurred there naturally have been
preserved. Among them is the small tree of Dichrostachys
glomerata, from which the specimen for figuring here was
taken. It comes into flower in December, so that one asso-
ciates its gay pink and yellow tassels of flowers with the
Christmas season. The species has a very wide distribution,
occurring throughout tropical Africa and into the Transvaal
and Natal. It varies considerably in some respects, as one
would expect in the case of such a wide distribution. In
the vicinity of Pretoria it is met with quite frequently,
especially to the west of the town and through the gaps in
the Magaliesberg range. It usually grows in thickets, but is
also found as a solitary tree. In all cases the branches are
long and arching and the branchlets short, divaricate and
spine tipped, thus forming a tangled and forbidding growth.
In the case of the trees the crown is very large and spreading
in proportion to the stem. The long, arching branches dis-
play the delicate tassels of flowers and the feathery leaves to
great advantage. By about March the characteristic clusters
of curled-up pods have fully developed, and they are usually
borne rather copiously, making the plant easy to identify.
It has been reported that D. glomerata was introduced into
Cuba, where it spread to an alarming extent and its control
became a difficult problem. The species was at first known
in South Africa as Dichrostachys nutans Benth., but this name
is now treated as a synonym of Dichrostachys glomerata
(Forssk.) Chiov. This combination of names was also made
by Hutchinson and Dalziel in the Kew Bulletin 1928, but
Chiovenda (1915) has priority. Two other species of Dichro-
stachys are recognised in South Africa, D. arborea N.E. Br.
and D. nyassana Taub., the former with smaller leaves and
the latter with larger leaves than D, glomerata. It has been
suggested that all three of these species might eventually be
regarded merely as varieties of one species.
Descriptio^t : — A small tree about 6 ft. tall, but may
grow up to 15 ft. or more, usually branching from near the
base (sometimes many growing together forming hedges or
thickets) ; branches long and divaricately spreading, the
ultimate and some abbreviated branchlets spine tipped.
Leaves fascicled, about 5 cm. long, pubescent Avith white
hairs; petiole 1-3 cm. long; pinnae about 10 pairs, 1*2-2 cm.
long, usually with a stalked or sessile gland beHveen each
pair; petiolule 1 mm. long; leaflets about 22 pairs, 2*5 mm.
long, unequal-sided at the base and very shortly stalked,
mostly with a cluster of minute glands at the base of the
stalk. Inflorescences spicate, usually 2-nate, pendulous ;
peduncle about 2-3 cm. long, pubescent; spikelets bearing
sterile pink or white flowers in the basal half and yellowish-
green bisexual flowers in upper half. Sterile flowers : Calyx
pale greenish-cream, campanulate, very shortly and obscurely
5-lobed, pubescent, about 1 mm. long. Corolla pale greenish-
cream, about 2*5 mm. long; lobes 5, united to above the
middle, but sht down to the base on one side. Stamens 10,
sterile; filaments all pink or all Avhite, exserted for about
8 mm., somewhat crisped. Ovary abortive. Bisexual floivers :
Calyx greenish, otherwise as in the sterile florets. Corolla
greenish, 5-lobed; lobes free for upper two-thirds, usually
Avith a red gland at apex. Stamens 10; filaments exserted
for about 2 mm. ; anthers yellow, often bearing a stalked
globose red gland. Ovary pubescent with long stiff hairs.
Pods curled and borne in clusters. (National Herbarium,
Pretoria, No. 27,070.) — I. C. Verdoorn.
Plate 894. — Fig. 1, whole sterile flower showing the corolla split on one
side ; 2, a border Ime flower cut open ; 3, a whole bisexual flower showing
the glands on the anthers ; 4, fruits.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
895
7 Z
K.A.LansdelJ del.
Plate 895.
GLADIOLUS VENUSTUS.
Cape Province.
Iridaceab.
Gladiolus venustus Lewis, Journ. S. Afr. Bot., 7, p. 56 (1941).
In 1863 Klatt described a species of Gladiolus, which he
named G. formosus, and the name was taken over by Baker
in the Flora Capensis. Sixty-one years before Klatt, Persoon
also described a Gladiolus formosus, but this is not mentioned
by Baker in the Flora Capensis. Persoon’ s species is, how-
ever, the same as that described by Jacquin in 1796 as
Gladiolus striatus and which was subsequently transferred
by Miss G. J. Lewis, l.c., p. 55, to the genus Babiana and
named by her B. striata. Under the International Rules of
Botanical Nomenclature, Article 61, the specific epithet
formosus becomes invalid, and the species described by Klatt
as Gladiolus formosus required a new name ; the new com-
bination G. venustus was made by Miss Lewis in 1941. The
species has been recorded from the Caledon, Ceres, Clan-
\^liam, Calvinia, and van Rhynsdorp districts of the Cape
Province.
The specimen figured was collected by Mrs. E. Rood
at van Rhynsdorp in August, 1923.
Description : — Corm about 2*5 cm. in diameter ; tunic
splitting into linear-lanceolate acuminate somewhat woody
scales. Leaves about 9 to a corm, up to 42 cm. long, 0-5 cm.
broad, linear, acute, with a prominent midrib, glabrous.
Flowering stem longer than the leaves, 5-7-flowered, some-
what zig-zag above. Spathe-valves shorter than the perianth-
tube, with membranous margins. Perianth-tube 1*2 cm. long,
gradually widening from the base upwards; limb 2-lipped;
lower lip with the three lobes distinctly clawed and with the
blade 1 cm. long, 0-5 cm. broad and elliptic; lower lip with
the lobes sessile 1-7 cm. long, 0-85 cm. broad and elliptic.
Stamens inserted about half-way down the perianth-tube;
filaments 1-3 cm. long, linear; anthers oblong, sagittate at
the base. Ovary subglobose; style 2-5 cm. long, filiform;
style-branches 2-5 cm. long, folded, oblong when flattened out,
papillose on the margins. (National Herbarium, Pretoria,
No. 27,061.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 895. — Fig. 1, stamen face view; 2, stamen side view; 3, apical
portion of style.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
8.96
M E. Connell del.
Plate 896.
TRICHOCAULON OFFICINALE.
Bechuanaland, South West Africa, Cape Province.
Asclepiadaceae.
Trichocaulon officinale N.E. Br. in Kew Bull. 1895, 264 ; White & Sloane,
The Stapeheae 1016 (1937).
Information on the discovery of this species and other
interesting data is to be found in The Stapelieae (1937). The
typical form from Bechuanaland is said to have a dark
purple-brown corolla, though Marloth stated that the part
round the corona may be yellow or orange, extending nearly
up to the sinuses, and in the form figured the dark purple-
brown is replaced by a light brown coloration shading into
yellow round the corona. Mr. P. J. van der Walt, who
collected our plant in the Philipstown district, points out
that it occurs there in two growth-forms, the one figured
being more robust than the other, but the flowers of the two
forms do not differ in any essential character. The robust
form grows under the protection of bushes in red sandy soil,
while the smaller one is found more in the open on limey-
gravel outcrops. The different habitat might well account
for the difference in habit.
The interpretation placed on the structure of the outer
corona by different workers has led to some confusion ;
Brown, l.c., gives it as follows : “ Outer corona arising near
the base of the staminal-column and attaining to about the
same level, forming 5 very short or entire or notched pouches
alternating with the anthers and rising into 5 erect sub-
quadrate or subquadrate-ovate lobes behind the inner corona-
lobes, obtusely 3-toothed at the top and the middle tooth
inflexed upon and adnate to the base of the inner corona-
lobes.” It would seem preferable to regard the corona-lobes
as united into a single series. In many species of the tribe
Stapelieae the inner corona-lobes have a dorsal hump or spur.
and to regard the hump in the present species as a tooth of
the outer corona seems unwarranted. The two-seriate corona
(inner and outer) was almost certainly derived from a uni-
seriate corona in the course of the evolution of the tribe,
and in the species under discussion the differentiation is
incomplete. Two species described by Dinter from South-
west Africa, T. pubijlorum and T. Delaetianum, are closely
allied to T. officinale, but how close the relationship is, is
difficult to assess owing in both cases to the rather vague
description of the corona; not that it is always simple to
give a clear word-picture of this organ.
Reasons for the irregular appearance of tubercles on the
older portions of the stems and characteristics of the flowering
eyes were given in the text accompanying the plate of T.
Pillansii, which appeared in the preceding volume.
Description : — Tufted succulent plant with branches up
to about 25 cm. tall. Branches with 15-17 ribs of tubercles
when young, the ribs becoming freely interrupted by flower-
ing eyes on the older portions, 3^-5 cm. diameter. Flowers
1-2 from a flowering eye (in one season). Pedicels 1-2 mm.
long. Sepals lanceolate, acuminate, 2-3 mm. long. Corolla
yellow round the corona shading into light bro^vn on the
lobes, T2-T3 cm. diameter, thinly puberulous, saucer-shaped
at the base; the lobes 4-5 mm. long and about the same
vddth across the base, acuminate, recurved at the apex.
Corona fused into one series arising slightly above the base
of the staminal-column ; the outer corona forming pockets
or pouches about 1 mm. deep between the inner corona-
lobes, and fusing laterally with the inner corona forming
slight prominences or blunt teeth at its sides; the inner
corona-lobes slightly humped (tooth of outer corona — Brown)
and incumbent on the back of the anthers and shorter than
them. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 26,507.) — R. A.
Dyer.
Plate 896. — Fig. 1, portion of branch natural size; 2, cross-section of
flower sho'wing corona ; 3, habit.
F.P.S.A., Aprfl 1943.
S97
E.K.Burg'ss del.
Plate 897.
HYPERICUM SONDERI.
Cajpe Province, Natal, Orange Free State, Basutoland,
Transvaal.
Hypeeicaceae.
Hypericum Sonderi Bredell in Bothalia, III, p. 4 (1939).
In the Flora Capensis, Sender placed a specimen collected
on the Magaliesberg under the species Hypericum aethiopicum
Thunb. This specimen is regarded by H. C. Bredell, who
revised the genus in 1939, as belonging to a distinct species,
which he described as H. Sonderi, distinguishing it from
H. aethiopicum principally by the embedded glands (not
stalked) along the margins of the bracts and sepals. Hyperi-
cum Sonderi occurs in the north-eastern portion of the Cape
Province and frequently throughout Natal, the Orange Free
State, Basutoland and the Transvaal, while H. aethiopicum
is found only in the coastal regions of the Cape Province.
The specimen figured here was eollected in November,
1942, a few miles to the north-east of Pretoria, where it
flourished in mixed grass veld. It occurred quite frequently
in conspicuous groups, and the canary-yellow flowers shone
brightly in the sun. The black glands dotted all over the
plant are a distinctive feature and probably secrete the
resinous juices that characterise the family. The bright
flowers attract many insect visitors, and the special glitter
towards the base of the petals is probably due to the juicy
superficial cells, which are sucked by insects. The stamens
are variously united at the base, usually in three bundles,
and the united base of these groups of stamens acts as a
platform for the sucking insect. The filaments are of different
lengths, the shorter bearing anthers which ripen, first, while
the longest, as long as the styles, ripen last. This is said to
ensure that autogamy shall take place just before the flower
fades, in case cross fertilisation has failed. The genus
Hypericum has over 300 species and is widely distributed in
both hemispheres, being especially plentiful in the northern
hemisphere, where some of the species are referred to as “ St.
John’s Wort Several species are in cultivation as orna-
mental plants. An African species which is quite a pleasing
shrub to have in the garden was figured on Plate 787 of this
work.
Description : — Bushy plant up to 45 cm. high. Stems
few to many from a woody rootstock, terete, conspicuously
black dotted (dots lenticular and rounded) branched towards
the apex; branches opposite, decussate and very slender.
Leaves opposite, decussate, sessile, up to about 2 cm. long
and 1-4 cm. broad, oblong or broadly ovate, amplexicaul at
base with a rounded or subacute apex; veins translucent,
3-5 running from the base on each side of the midrib ; margins
entire with a row of conspicuous round black glands imbedded
along the edge. Inflorescence a terminal 1-2-3 -branched
dichotomous cyme. Bracts 5 mm. long, 1-5 mm. broad,
narrow-ovate, acuminate, acute, with several scattered em-
bedded black glands. Calyx segments 5, green, with several
scattered dots as on the bracts, about 6 mm. long and 1-25 mm.
broad, narrowly ovate, acuminate. Petals 5, canary-yellow,
with scattered embedded black dots, spreading, about 1 cm.
long and 5 mm. broad, oblong, more or less cuneate at the
base. Stamens numerous, erect; filaments canary -yellow,
filiform of unequal length, up to ± 8 mm. long, united at
the base into three or more phalanges; anthers obviously in
different stages of development, the shorter ripening first,
0-75 mm. long, often bearing one or more black glands.
Ovary 3-chambered, obscurely 3-lobed ; styles 3, canary-
yellow, about 5 mm. long. (National Herbarium, Pretoria,
No. 27,063.) — I. C. Verdoorn.
4,
Plate 897. — Fig. 1, bract ; 2, calyx segments ; 3, one cluster of stamens ;
g5Tioecium.
F.P.S.A., AprU 1943.
R. Brown del.
Plate 898.
SCILLA MEGAPHYLLA.
Transvaal, Natal.
Liliaceae.
Scilla (Ledebouria) megaphylla Baker, FI. Cap. vi, p. 490 (1897).
This is the largest known species in this subgenus, and
mature plants are easily distinguished from all other species
by the size of the leaves and bulbs. They are further char-
acterised (along with 8. zebrina) by the Boscia-like smell of
the flowers, of which the segments and stamens are usually
of a greenish colour, without any purple.
It was first collected and described from Barberton. Both
here and at Nelspruit the leaves show no markings; but
specimens from elsewhere — Zoutpansberg (Happy Rest),
Drakensberg mountains (near Fertilis, Pietersburg District),
and Natal (Vryheid and Ladysmith) — show characteristic
irregular transverse purple lines on the under-side of the leaf,
near the base. Plants from Lydenburg (Rustplaats) have in
addition large round blackish blotches on the leaves.
Description : — Bulb large, about 10-15 cm. in diameter,
covered with thin dry leaf-remains. Leaves 6-8, bright green,
sometimes with blackish spots on the upper surface, and
narrow wavy transverse purplish bands on the under surface
near the base, lanceolate, erect when young, then spreading
somewhat, up to about 30 cm. long and 10-15 cm. wide at
the middle. Inflorescence usually 4-5 scapes, as long as or
longer than the leaves : axis green, often with purplish spots,
below the raceme flattened or triangular. Raceme cylindric,
about 15 cm. long and 3 cm. in diameter, up to about 200
flowers. Pedicel whitish, about 1 cm. long, subtended by a
small, irregular fibrous bract, often inserted on a longitudinal
ridge on the axis. Perianth-segments whitish with a green
band down the middle, about 5 mm. long, forming a deep
cup at their base, and then recurving strongly when the
flower is open. Filaments whitish, erect, about as long as the
segments; anthers covered with yellowish pollen. Ovary
stipitate, discoid at the base, 6-sulcate, 3-chambered with
2 ovules in each chamber; style white, pointed, (v.d.
Merwe 2603, National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,068.) —
F. Z. VAN DER Merwe.
Plate 898. — Fig. 1, sketch of plant, i; 2, longitudinal section of flower,
X 8 ; 3, ovary from side ; 4, ovary from above ; 5, portion of axis.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
E.K.Burges ■del.
Plate 899.
SCILLA ZEBRINA.
Natal.
Liliaceae.
Scilla zebrina Baker, Saund. Ref. Bot. Ill, t.l85 (1870); Baker in FI.
Cap. VI, p. 492 (1897).
When comparing the present plate with Baker’s original
figure, one finds that while the leaves agree very well, there
are some differences in the fiowers, namely the absence of a
distinct purple colour on the perianth-segments and filaments,
and the greater length and thinness of the filaments in the
species here figured. The absence of an actual locality in
Baker’s description is an added difficulty, although it is
known that Thomas Cooper collected in the vicinity of Dur-
ban. On the whole it seems to us, however, that these
differences may be ascribed to the rather conventional treat-
ment of the original subject, and that the present species
may be identified as Scilla zebrina.
The species here figured grows on grassy hillsides near
Inanda, north of Durban, and is characterised by a relatively
large bulb and longitudinally-striped leaves. It resembles
S. mega'phylla on the preceding Plate 898 in its colourless
fiowers and filaments, and its Boscia-like smell, and differs
from it in its somewhat later-emerging leaves.
Description : — Bulb up to about 9 cm. in diameter,
covered with a dense layer of dried leaves. Leaves 6-12,
lanceolate; when mature bright green, etc. (see under Plate
898) about 7 cm. wide one-quarter from the base, and up to
25 cm. long, spreading-erect, sometimes slightly pruinose,
with typical vertical parallel purplish-black lines on the under
surface, less marked on the upper surface: towards the base
these may be modified into horizontal stripes. Inflorescence
1-3 scapes, about 25 cm. long when in flower, of which the
raceme is 10 cm. long, cylindric, about 3 cm. in diameter.
about 100 flowers. Pedicel green, 5 cm. long, subtended by a
small irregular membranous bract. Perianth-segments whitish
with a green median band, sometimes slightly tinged with
brown, forming a deep cup at their base, and then recurving
strongly, about 5 mm. long. Filaments whitish or very pale
purple, about as long as segments, slender. Ovary green,
stipitate, discoid at base; style whitish, (v.d. Merwe in
National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,069.) — F. Z. van der
Merwe.
Plate 899. — Fig. 1, sketch of plant ; 2, ovary ; 3, part of axis.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
Plate 900.
KANAHIA GLABERRIMA.
Kenya Colony to Transvaal.
Asclepiadaceae.
Kanahia glaberrima N.E. Br. in El. Trop. Afr. 4, pt. 1, 297 (1902).
The presence of sedges and grasses standing in river-beds
is a familiar sight, but this habitat is not usually associated
with species of Asclepiadaceae. One is surprised, therefore,
to find Kanahia glaberrima, a fibrous, latex-yielding plant,
growing under such conditions. It grows in the sandy river-
beds or with the strong rootstock wedged between rocks
periodically inundated for weeks or months by flood- waters.
A feature of interest is the occasional (or frequent ?) germina-
tion of seeds before dispersal from the seed-pod. In this
even the parachute-function of the tuft of hairs on the seed
to give it a “ flying start ” in life is dispensed with. The
short radicle produced while in the seed-pod is, under favour-
able conditions, able to anchor the young plant almost
immediately after dispersal.
The specimen used for our illustration was collected by
the writer in the Limpopo River, being a portion of the
boundary of the Dongola Nature Reserve, about 30 miles
east of Messina. The genus Kanahia has not previously
been recorded from the Union of South Africa, although it
has now been established that a plant collected by the late
Dr. E. E. Galpin in 1934 in the sandy bed of the Great Letaba
River, 50 miles north of Gravelotte Station in the Pietersburg
district, belongs also to K. glaberrima (Galpin 13,520). It is
found in various river-sites from here into Kenya Colony.
The first records and only other illustration of this plant
are to be found in the Transactions of the Linnean Society,
29 (1873-1875). This is an account of the plants collected
by Capt. J. A. Grant on the “ Speke and Grant Expedition ”
from Zanzibar to Cairo, including the source of the Nile.
< mut » ‘ ■ ■,
; MARY GUNN LIBRARY
^ national botanical i.nstitute
PRIVATE BAG X 101
PRETORIA 0001
OF SOUTH |
Grant makes the following record about his specimen of
K. glaberrima collected at Marenga M’Kdiah 6° 44' S. lat. :
“ A very showy bushy plant by water, Nov.” In the first
instance Oliver classified the plant as Oomphocarpus glaber-
rimus, but in 1895 Schlechter, in the Journal of Botany,
transferred it to the genus Asclepias. In 1902, however,
N. E. Brown, in Flora of Tropical Africa, placed it in the
genus Kanahia, making the following comment : “ By its
floral structure Kanahia cannot be distinguished from Xysma-
lobium on the one hand and Asclepias on the other. Yet as
it is easily distinguished from both those genera by its inflor-
escence and by the presence of minute bristles in the axils
of the leaves, I deem it best to retain it on those grounds.”
Description : — Plant tufted from a perennial rootstock, 3-4 ft. high.
Stems simple, rarely branched above, about 5 mm. in diameter, glabrous
except for minute stiff hairs in the axils of leaves and occasionally along
the rudimentary stipular line between the leaf-bases and a few very minute
scattered hairs, marked with distinct leaf-scars when leaves faU. Leaves
yellowish-green, ascending, subsessUe, averaging about 8 cm. long and
0- 75 cm. broad, linear-lanceolate, shghtly thickened and with the midrib
depressed along the under surface. Flowers in pedunculate several-flowered
bracteate pseudo-umbellate racemes, lateral between the bases of the
leaves. Peduncles about 4 cm. long ; outer bracts about 1 cm. long, lanceo-
late ; inner one smaller. Pedicels elongating up to about 2-5 cm. in fruit.
Sepals up to 8 mm. long, more or less lanceolate. Corolla creamy-white,
deeply 5-lobed; lobes about 1 cm. long, 7 mm. broad towards the base;
with the under surface concave, glabrous ; the upper surface bordered along
the margin with woolly hair, minutely pubescent elsewhere. Corona-lobes
glossy white, 4-5 mm. high, arising about 1-5 mm. above the base of the
stamtnal column, complicate. Assured on the inner surface and projected
into two short horns directed over and shghtly overtopping the sfaminal
column, broadest about the middle, viewed from the back. Follicles
usuahy one or none developed from an inflorescence, 3-3-5 cm. long, about
1- 75 cm. diameter rounded and smooth on outer side, grooved on inner side,
obtuse or apiculate. Seeds 3-5 mm. long, 2 mm. broad, rounded on one
surface and concave on the other, tapering to the end with a tuft of flne
hairs. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,065.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 900. — Fig. 1, flowering branch natural size; 2, flower enlarged;
3, fruit natural size ; 4, portion of stem showing bristle-hke hairs and the
scar caused by a faUen peduncle; 5, portion of corolla lobe showing long
and short hairs; 6, corona-lobe; 7, caudicle and poUen masses; 8, seed
and tuft of hairs; 9, germinating seed taken from within foUicle; 10,
developing embryo with testa removed; 11, habit.
F.P.S.A., April 1943.
i '
907
Plate 901.
NAUTOCHILUS LABIATUS.
Northern and north-eastern Transvaal.
Labiatae.
Nautochilus labiatus (N. E. Br.) Bremekamp, Ann. Transvaal Mus. XV,
part II, 253. Orthosiphon labiatus N. E. Br. FI. Cap. V, part I, 245.
In the gardens of the Division of Botany and Plant
Pathology and on the “ Wild Flower Koppie ” of the Union
Buildings, Nautochilus labiatus makes a fine show in the
summer months. The bushy plants have many ascending
branches, which are terminated by racemes bearing whorls
of flowers that have delicate pinky-mauve corollas and per-
sistent reddish-purple calyces. All these plants were pro-
pagated from a single individual which had been collected
in the northern Transvaal. While there is some doubt as to
the exact locality of this parent plant, it is known from
herbarium records that the species occurs in the Houtbosch-
berg (“ Woodbush Mountains ” in FI. Cap.), in Schoemans-
kloof, at Shilouvane and at Barberton, all in the Transvaal.
None of the collectors gives measurements of the plants in the
wild state, and it is probable that through cultivation, especially
cutting the plants back in winter, the garden specimens are
finer than the wild ones. It is possible, therefore, that the
size given in the description of this plate and the large number
of branches is not typical, but in all other respects the culti-
vated specimens agree exactly with the type material and the
other records from the natural haunts of the species. The
type specimen was originally described by N. E. Brown in the
Flora Capensis as Orthosiphon labiatus, with a footnote which
reads : “ The long slender petioles and long upper lip of the
corolla readily distinguish this from all the other South
African species”. In the Annals of the Transvaal Museum
Dr. C. E. B. Bremekamp describes a new genus, Nautochilus,
for which he says he is “ taking Orthosiphon labiatus as type ”.
Besides the new combination, Nautochilus labiatus (N. E. Br.)
Bremekamp, he describes three closely related species, all from
the Transvaal. These plants in general habit differ consider-
ably from the other species of Orthosiphon and the laterally
compressed corolla, the strongly recurved tube and the stamen-
bases are also not characteristic of that genus.
The plate was prepared during the first week in February
from one of the many bushes at the Division of Botany and
Plant Pathology. These bushes had been flowering gaily
since December. This long flowering period adds to their
desirability in a garden, and a further attraction is the
“ herby ” scent exuded when the bush is bruised or cut.
Description. — A bushy plant 2-3 ft. tall and 2-4 ft. in diameter, branched
at the base with numerous ascending 4-angled thinly pubescent branches,
which are simple or branched again near the apex. Leaves bright green,
spreading, opposite and decussate ; petiole up to 2 cm. long, thinly pubescent ;
blade more or less ovate, cuneate at the base, obtusely serrate varying in
size, the average being about 5 cm. long and 4 cm. broad, thinly pubescent
on both surfaces. Racemes terminal, erect. Flowers in whorls about 1-1-5
cm. apart; the whorls 6-flowered (sometimes 4 or 8-flowered). Bracts
purple, ovate, acutely acuminate at the apex, cuneate at base, about 1 cm.
long, -6 cm. wide, only the upper more or less persistent. Pedicels brownish-
purple, 5-6 mm. long, pubescent with short gland-tipped hairs. Calyx
purple, greenish towards the base, persistent and somewhat accrescent with
age, shortly pubescent and minutely glandular; tube about 5 mm. long;
upper tooth orbicular-ovate, acute, decurrent on the tube, about 4 mm.
long (including decurrent base) and 4 mm. broad; lateral teeth acutely
acuminate from a broad base, 2-5 mm. long, two lower teeth subulate, 3 nim.
long. Corolla laterally compressed, shortly and minutely pubescent without ;
tube about 1-2 cm. long, distinctly curved and amplifying to the mouth,
which is 4 mm. wide in the vertical diameter; upper hp about 1-4 cm. long,
standing at right angles to tube and then recurving, 3-toothed at the apex,
the middle tooth being much larger than the lateral; lower lip 1-4 cm. long,
spreading, canaliculate constricted at the base. Stamens 4, declinate,
exserted ; the lower reaching to the apex of the lower lip or beyond ; fila-
ments free, the upper pair inserted at the base of the tube, curving with the
tube and densely pubescent towards the base ; the lower pair inserted more
or less at the mouth of the corolla; anthers blackish-purple, about 1 mm.
long. Disc annular. Ovary deeply 4-lobed; style about 2-2 cm. long,
fiUform ; stigma minutely bifid. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No.
27,080.) — I. C. Verdoorn.
Plate 901. — Fig. 1 and la, flowering twigs, natural size; 2, calyx; 3,
corolla ; 4, longitudinal section of corolla showing insertion of one upper and
one lower stamen ; 5, disc, ovary and style.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
;
I-
902
E.K.Bur^es del
Plate 902.
CEROPEGIA INSIGNIS.
Transvaal.
Asclepiadaceae ,
Ceropegia insignis R. A. Dyer, sp. nov., herba perennis floribus valde
distincta.
Herba perennis, erecta, simplex, 20-45 cm. alta. Tuber 3 cm. altum,
4-25 cm. diametro, basi truncatum. Caulis gracilis, puberulus, pUis reflexis
indutus, internodiis 3-5 cm. longis. Folia patentia, sessilia vel subsessilia,
linearia, acuminata, 12-14 cm. longa, 7-8 mm. lata, sparse puberula. Flores
subaxUlares, solitarii, pedicellis 1-1-5 cm. longis. Sepala lineari-lanceolata,
plus minusve 5 mm. longa. Corolla ctrciter 12 cm. longa, erecta; tubus
pallide viridis, rubro-brunneo sujEfusus, basin et faucem versus rubro-brunneo
notatus, 7-7-5 cm. longus, paulo basin supra 9 mm. diametro inflatus, supra
contractus, 4 mm. diametro, fauce dflatato 1-5-1-7 cm. diametro, extra
glaber, intus faucem versus pflis paucis longis purpureis indutus; lobi basi
replicati, intus atro-purpureo-notati, supra extra paUide viridi brunneo-
suffusi, lineares e basi ovata erecti, 4-8-5 cm. longi, 3-5 cm. liberi, apicem
versus 1-1-5 cm. cohaerentes spiraliter torti, intus basin versus pilis paucis
albidis induti. Corona exterior lobis 5 bifidis pilis paucis longis albidis
indutis; interior membranacea, lobis 5 Unearibus 5 mm. longis apice re-
curvatis.
Transvaal : Marico district, Lekkerlach, on stony mountain slope in
grassveld, Dec., Louw 812 and in National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,079.
Several species of Ceropegia have been illustrated pre-
viously in this work, covering a considerable range both in
vegetative and floral structure. The present newly described
species is a notable {insignis) addition. The flowers, feorne
singly at the nodes of the delicate stem, appear dispropor-
tionally large, being up to about 12 cm. (4| in.) long. The
fused, spirally twisted tips of the corolla-lobes shown in Fig. 2
are also most unusual, although not unique in the genus, for
there are a few closely related species on the Bauchi Plateau
in Northern Nigeria. One of these is flgured in the Kew
Bulletin 1921, 388.
Ceropegia insignis is described from a single specimen first
collected in flower by Mr. W. J. Louw in December 1940 in
the Marico district of the Transvaal. It was found on a stony
mountain slope in grassveld, and was brought to the Division
of Botany and Plant Pathology, Pretoria, for elassiflcation.
The tuber has been in cultivation here since then, and was
figured when it flowered again in January, 1943. The stem
produced in cultivation was slightly more elongated and weaker
than the original one from the veld. Mr. Louw was unsuccess-
ful in his persistent seareh for further specimens, so that there
is little prospect of this attractive novelty coming into general
cultivation in the near future.
Desceiption. — A perennial unbranched herb 20-45 cm. tall. Tuber
dome-shaped with a flattish base, 3 cm. high, 4-25 cm. broad, with a short
neck-hke stem underground which annually produces a single stem above
ground. Stem 20-45 cm. high, with 8-10 (or sometimes perhaps more) pairs
of opposite leaves, slender, puberulous with reflexed hairs. Leaves linear,
acuminate, sessile or subsessile, those on the middle portion of the stem
longest, 12-14 cm. long, 7-8 mm. broad, thinly puberulous, midrib sunken
on the upper surface, prominent below. Flowers solitary at a node, on a
peduncle arising slightly to one side of a petiole and subtended by a minute
bracteole, developed successively as the stem elongates. Sepals linear-
lanceolate, about 6 mm. long. Corolla about 12 cm. long, glabrous outside
and within except towards the throat, furnished with long purple hairs and
base of the lobes with a few white hairs ; tube variable in colour, variously
described as “ basal swelling and apical part with creamy markings other-
wise reddish-brown ” (Louw) or “ greenish suffused with reddish-brown
and darker reddish-brown markings on the basal swelling and towards the
throat, which is purple-black marked within ”, 7-7-5 cm. long, with a small
cup-shaped base and inflated above this to 9 mm. diameter and obscurely
5-angled, contracted to 4 mm. diameter and thence gradually broadened to
the throat 1-5-1 -7 cm. diameter ; lobes with margins folded back at the base,
with the inner portions nearly meeting over the centre of the throat, mottled
at the base within, greenish on the outer surface with brownish tinge towards
the tips, spirally twisted in bud, the lower 3-5 mm. becoming free and more
or less straight while the apical 1-1-5 cm. remains fused and twisted. Outer
corona-lobes spreading, deeply bifid, with long white hairs directed inwards,
united at the base to the inner corona-lobes ; inner corona-lobes linear, 5 mm.
long, incumbent on the backs of the anthers at the base with erect recoiled
tips. — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 902. — Fig. 1, top of plant with flower, natural size ; 2, throat and
lobes of corolla enlarged ; 3 and 4, corona, top and side view, enlarged ; 5,
habit under cultivation.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
903
E.K.Bur^es del.
Plate 903.
TECOMARIA CAPENSIS.
Cape Province, Transvaal, Tropical Africa.
Bignoniaceae.
Tecomaria capensis Spach, Hist. Veg. Phan., 9, 137 (1840) ; FI. Cap.,
4, sect. 2, 448 (1904).
Tecomaria capensis, or, as it is known in South Africa, the
“ Ka£Sr honeysuckle ”, occurs in tropical Africa and extends
through the Transvaal and Natal through the eastern coastal
strip to the Humansdorp district of the Cape Province. It is
an extremely decorative plant, and is frequently found as a
hedge plant or grown- as an ornamental in gardens, but as a
cut flower it is disappointing, as the flowers soon droop and
fall off. During the month of February it is in full flower in
Pretoria. Drooping flowers have a wonderful power of
recovery if the stems are cut under hot water; the flowers
becoming turgid and erect within a few seconds. This striking
species was not overlooked by the early Cape collectors, as
Burchell collected specimens at Port Alfred in the Bathurst
district at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Mr.
Bowie, in the year 1823, sent seeds to Kew, and plants that
flowered there were flgured in The Botanical Register (PI. 1117)
in the year 1827.
The specimens from which our plate was made are from
the grounds of the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology,
Pretoria.
Description. — A shrubby plant. Branchlets brown, with
raised lenticels, glabrous. Leaves opposite, petioled, impari-
pinnate, -with 3-4 pairs of pinnae and a terminal pinna,
glabrous; pinnae 1-2 cm. long, 1-1-5 cm. broad, -with the
terminal pinna shghtly larger, ovate or elliptic, with the
margins crenate; leaf-rhachis channelled on the upper face.
Inflorescence a terminal raceme. Peduncle 2-5 cm. long.
Bracts linear, shorter than the pedicels. Pedicel 1 cm. long.
Calyx 7 mm. long, 3 mm. diameter, tubular ; lobes about 1 cm.
long, ovate. Corolla 2-lipped; tube 3-5 cm. long, 2 mm.
diameter at the base, 9 mm. diameter at the compressed
mouth; upper hp 2*5 cm. long, 3-5 cm. broad, 4-lobed, erect;
lower lip 2 cm. long, 1 mm. broad, oblong, more or less hori-
zontal. Stamens fixed to the lower portion of the corolla-
tube; filaments up to 4-5 cm. long, terete, erect, curved at
the upper portion under the upper hp, sparsely glandular
at the base; antherthecae separate, each theca linear, and
anther with a minute gland at the apex. Disc maroon,
annular, surrounding the base of the ovary. Ovary 4 mm.
long, cylindric, 2-chambered, vdth several ovules in each
chamber, glabrous; style 5-5 cm. long, cylindric; stigma
flattened, 2-lobed. Fruit a flattened capsule up to 9-12 cm.
long. Seed, orbicular vdth a broad membranous vdng.
(National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,083.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 903. — Fig. 1, longitudinal section of flower; 2, part of stamen;
3, upper portion of style ; 4, fruit, 5, seed.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
i/r
t
i'
30^
R. Brown dpi
Plate 904.
SCHIZOCARPHUS NERVOSUS.
Bechuanaland, Natal, Transvaal, O.F.S., Cape Province.
Liliaceae.
Schizocarphus F. van der Merwe, gen. nov. Scillam rigidifoUam Kunth
(incl. var p et y Baker et var. acerosa van der Merwe) aequans, a
speciebus aliis in Subgen. Euscilla Baker foliis conspicue nervosis
bulbis fibris multis indutis et floribus albo-virentibus difiert. Species
typica S. nervosus.
When Baker revised the genus Scilla (Journ. Linn. See.
xiii, 237, et FI. Cap. vi, 479), ins subgenus Euscilla was made
to include a rather heterogeneous number of species which did
not fit elsewhere. Of the South African species known to us,
only the varieties of 8. natalensis and 8. Kraussii appear to
have some affinity with European species like 8. hifolia and
8. autumnalis. Of the remainder, 8. lachenalioides, while
fitting into the genus 8cilla according to the key, since the
perianth-segments do spread somewhat at their tips, is never-
theless in most respects more closely allied to the genus
Drimiopsis, as is 8. 8chlechteri, Baker, placed by the author
among the Ledebourias (Bull. Herb. Boiss. Ser. 2, Vol. 4,
1002). All four of the above species have already been
figured in “ Flowering Plants ”. In his original description of
8cilla firmifolia. Baker considers it to be a bridge between the
Euscillas and Ledebourias; but to us it appears to have but
little afiinity with either.
Another group of Baker’s Euscillas are those described as
varieties of 8cilla rigidifolia. They, however, differ dis-
tinctly from the previously mentioned species in their star-
like white fiowers, more or less marked with green at the seg-
ment-tips, their distinctly subequal segments, and their
fibrous leaves and bulb-coverings. These we are now separat-
ing from the genus 8cilla, and describing as species of a new
genus 8chizocarphus. They resemble each other very closely,
and are distinguished mainly by the width of their leaves, the
relative prominence of the veins, and the average sizes of the
racemes. Besides the three species cited by Baker as varieties
of 8cilla rigidifolia and figured in this and the following two
plates, a fourth was published as var. acerosa in “Flowering
Plants ”, Plate 821 (1941). This now becomes SchizocarphiLs
acerosus. In addition, Scilla versicolor Baker (Saund. Ref.
Bot. V, t. 305), which appears to differ from S. rigidifoUa
Kunth (also figured as S. pallidiflora Baker in Saund. Ref.
Bot. Ill, t. 179) only by the much less prominent veins, but
which has not yet been rediscovered by us, may prove to be a
fifth species of this genus. On consulting the plates of
S. pallidiflora and S. versicolor in Saunders’ “ Refugium
Botanicum ”, we see no indication of fibrous leaf-remnants
about the bulbs in either, so that we are at present dependent
on the descriptions for the difference between the two. Per-
haps the nearest relation to this genus is Scilla flrmifolia
Baker, which has pinkish flowers and narrower leaves.
Schizicarphus nervosus [Burch.) F. van der Merwe, Ornithogalum nervo-
sum Burch. “ Travels ” 1, 537 (1822), comb nov., Scilla rigidifoUa var.
nervosa Baker in Journ. Linn. Soc. 13, 242 (1873) ; FI. Cap. 6, 481
(1897).
This species was first collected by Burchell near the present
site of Grikwastad. An extremely robust form grows north
of Pretoria (Rust-der-Winter). The specimen here figured
was collected between Bergville and Mont-aux-Sources, Natal.
Description. — Bulbs often increased by division, 5 cm. or more in diameter
(with coat), covered by a dense layer of old bristles, formed by the persistent
vascular system of old leaf-bases. Leaves about 6, rigid, erect, 3-6 cm. wide
and up to 20 cm. long, bright green, with cartilaginous margius, long-
acuminate, and wdth numerous prominent parallel veins, minutely pubescent.
Inflorescence 1-2 scapes, spreading-erect, as long as the leaves ; axis thickened
from below upwards to the raceme. Raceme pyramidal, up to 10 cm. wide
when flowers are open, about 20 cm. long, 100-200 flowers. Pedicel up to
5 cm. long, usually standing stiffly at right angles to the axis, subtended by
a narrow membranous bract. Perianth-segments white with green apex,
which often extends base-wards as a narrow green mid-hne, spreading widely
from their base and often curving downward; three alternate segments
wider than the remaining ones ; all narrower at their bases and with fleshy
points. Filaments white, erect; anthers bluish, or covered with yellow
pollen. Ovary bluish-green, 3-chambered, very shortly stipitate, ovoid;
ovules more than two in each chamber; style white, short. (F. van der
Merwe 2611 and in National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,071.) — F. van der
Merwe.
Plate 904. — Fig. 1, sketch of plant; 2, longitudinal section of flower;
3, horizontal section of ovary ; 4, side view of ovary ; 5, ovary from above ;
6, portion of axis.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
R. Brown del.
7
Plate 905.
SCHIZOCARPHUS RIGIDIFOLIUS.
Cape Province, O.F.S., Natal, Transvaal.
Liliaceab.
Schizocarphus rigidifolius (Kunth) F. van der Merwe, comb, nov.,
Scilla rigidifolia Kunth, Enum. iv, 330 (1843) ; Baker in FI. Cap. 6,
481 (1897).
On comparing this plate with the preceding one, it will be
found that the main difference lies in the width of the leaves,
which in the case of this species are always about 1-1*5 cm.,
and not quite as prominently-nerved. In fresh material the
nervation may be apparent only on the underside of the leaf,
although with drying it is conspicuous on both sides. Its
relation to Scilla versicolor Baker is not quite clear, in the
absence of any material of the latter for comparison. In
dried specimens where the leaves have shrunk, the difference
from Schizocarphus nervosus may have to be sought carefully.
The raceme of S. rigidifolius is usually more modest. The
type locahty of this flower is in the eastern Cape Province,
but it has a wide distribution, often overlapping that of
8. nervosus, though always remaining distinct from it. The
plant here flgured was collected among short grass on a hill-
side near the National Park, Mont-aux-Sources. We are
indebted to Dr. B. S. Fisher of the Natal University College
for her help in supervising the preparation of this and the
previous plate.
Desceiption. — Bulb pyriform, covered with a dense coat
of flbrous material, up to 5 cm. in diameter. Leaves bright
green, hgulate, acuminate, about 6, erect, 1-1*5 cm. wide and
usually about 15-20 cm. long, strongly nerved, with smooth
cartilaginous margins. Inflorescence : scape as long as the
leaves ; raceme up to 100 flowers. Pedicels green, long, sub-
tended by thin fllamentous bracts. Perianth-segments white
with narrow green mid-veins and green fleshy points speading
from their base, subequal. Filaments white, erect-spreading.
as long as the segments ; anthers bluish-green. Ovary
bluish-green, shortly stipitate, ovoid, 3-partite, more than 2
ovules in each chamber, style white, short, pointed. (F. van
der Merwe 2612 and in National Herbarium, Pretoria, No.
27,072.) — F. VAN DER Merwe.
Plate 905. — Fig. 1, sketch of plant; 2, longitudinal section of flower;
3, ovary from side ; 4, ovary from above ; 5, portion of axis.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
906
E.K. Buries del.
Plate 906.
SCHIZOCAEPHUS GERRARDI.
Natal.
Liliacbae.
Schizocarphus Gerrardi (Baker) F. van der Merwe, comb. nov. 8cilla
Gerrardi Baker in Journ. Linn. Soc. 13, 237 (1873); Scilla rigidifolia
var. Gerrardi (Baker) Baker, in FI. Cap. 6, 481 (1897).
The plant here figured was collected near Kranskop,
Natal, and agrees with the type specimen at Kew. It is
probably conspecific with Scilla pubescens Baker, which was
described from a specimen without a bulb, said to have been
collected near Howick. When the accompan3ung plate is
compared with Plate 821 in this work, it will be found to differ
from it by the flatness of the leaves, which are also more
pubescent.
Description. — Bulb pyriform, about 3 cm. in diameter
(with coat), covered with the dense layer of fibres which
distinguishes this genus. Leaves deep green, 5-6, linear, 3-4
mm. wide, 8 cm. long, pubescent, strongly-veined, especially
on the underside. Inflorescence 1 or 2 from each bulb ; scape
about as long as the leaves; axis terete and narrow below,
widening somewhat below the raceme, pubescent; raceme
cylindric, lax, about 3 cm. long and 2 cm. in diameter, about
20 flowers. Pedicel greenish, about 5 mm. long, subtended by
an attenuated filmy bract. Perianth-segments white with
green apices, spreading widely from their base; 3 alternate
ones wider than the rest. Filaments white, erect-spreading,
shorter than the perianth-segments; anthers bluish-green.
Ovary bluish-green, very shortly stipitate, ovoid, 3-lobed and
-chambered; ovules more than 2 in each chamber, of which
only a portion develop; style white, short, pointed. F. van
der Merwe 2595 and in National Herbarium, Pretoria, No.
27,081.) — F. VAN DER Merwe.
Plate 906. — Fig. 1, portion of axis ; 2, pistil ; 3 and 3a, upper and lower
surfaces of leaves showing venation x9.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
.
E.K. Buries del.
Plate 907.
STRIGA ELEGANS.
Southern and Tropical Africa.
SCROPHULAEIACEAB .
Striga elegans Benth. in Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. 1, 363 ; FI. Cap. IV,
sec. II, 382.
Striga elegans is found in the grass veld in most parts of
southern and tropical Africa as a semi-parasite on grasses.
The only record in the National Herbarium of the actual
identity of the host is that of a specimen attached to the roots
of Elyonurus argenteus. It should not be inferred from this
that it does not parasitise other species of grass, for where it
grows in the mixed grass veld, even if the delicate connection
at the base of the parasite is found among the tangled mass of
fibrous roots, it is usually impossible to trace that particular
fibrous root to the actual grass from which it originated.
Apparently Striga elegans does not adversely affect the
grass veld in which it is found, nor has there been any record
of it as a parasite on cultivated crops. During the summer
months the bright attractive flowers are conspicuous in the
veld, but the species never becomes dominant. The most
usual colour of the spreading corolla-lobes is a bright scarlet
on the upper surface and apricot yellow below, while the throat
is a bright yellow ; there are, however, several records of pink
instead of scarlet corolla-lobes.
This strikingly pretty little plant with scarlet flower
gleaming in the sun is suitably set in the green grass. It lasts
well as a “ cut flower ”. The plant figured here was collected
by Miss J. Murray at Rietvlei, to the south of Pretoria.
A closely related species is S. lutea the “ witch-weed ” or
“ Rooiblom ”, which becomes a parasite on maize and causes
considerable damage to the crop.
Description. — Plant semi-parasitic on grass, up to about
30 cm. tall, scabrid-pubescent on all green parts with short
stiff patent bulbose-based hairs. Stems simple or occasionally
with about 2 branches, straight, slender, especially at the base
and slightly thickened towards the apex. Leaves opposite,
decussate, lanceolate-linear, shghtly narrowing to the obtuse
or sub-acute apex, 1-3 cm. long and about 3 mm. wide; the
lower leaves the shortest and gradually increasing in length,
then sometimes decreasing below the inflorescence; inter-
nodes more or less as long as the leaves. Inflorescence a
terminal spike, usually about 10 cm. long (varying from 2 to
15 cm. long). Floral bracts subopposite, hke the fohage leaves
but shghtly more lanceolate and acute, about 1-2 cm. long.
Bracteoles 2, hnear, acute, about 8 mm. long, 1 mm. wide and
0-5 mm. thick, flat on the upper face, rounded and scabrid-
pubescent dorsaUy, erect and appressed to the calyx. Flowers
sessile or very shortly stalked. Calyx 1-3 cm. long, scabrid-
pubescent without; tube narrow, about 8 mm. long, with
about 10 prominent nerves; lobes erect, narrowly deltoid-
acuminate, acute; the upper about 4 mm. long and the rest
shghtly longer up to 5 mm. long. Corolla tubular, with
spreading bilabiate hmbs; tube yeUowish, slender, strongly
bent near the apex and shghtly amphfied at the bend, about
1*7 cm. long; the part exserted from the calyx pubescent
without with short patent red or white gland-tipped hairs,
thinly pubescent within with reflexed white hairs; mouth
bright yellow, pubescent; upper lip scarlet red above and
apricot yeUow below (the colour is known to vary sometimes),
abruptly spreading and bent backwards, about 6-7 mm. long
and 10 mm. wide, emarginate, pubescent at the base and
thinly pubescent dorsally; lower hp scarlet red above and
apricot yeUow below, abruptly spreading and projecting for-
ward, about 1*3 cm. long, 3-lobed almost to the base; lobes
obovate, more or less equal, dorsaUy thinly and shortly pubes-
cent with gland-tipped hairs. Stamens 4, inserted in the
upper part of the tube, included; upper pair of filaments
about 1*5 mm. long; lower 2 mm. long. Ovary green, about
3 mm. long, smooth ; style 1*2 cm. long. (National Herbarium
Pretoria, No. 27,131.) — I. C. Verdoorn.
Plate 907. — Fig. 1, flowering stem life size; 2, bract; 3, bracteole;
calyx slit on one side and opened out ; 5, longitudinal section of flower ;
stigma, style and ovary ; 7, habit.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
4,
6,
908
E.K. Buries del
Plate 908.
CRASSULA NAMAQUENSIS.
Namaqualand.
Crassulaceae.
Crassula namaquensis Schonl. & Bak. f. in Journ. Bot. 36, 367
(1898); Schonl. in Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Afr. 17, 268 (1929).
When studying this figure of Crassula namaquensis, it must
be borne in mind that it was prepared from a plant grown in a
pot for over five years at the Division of Botany and Plant
Pathology. It was collected in July, 1937, about 15 miles
north of Port Nolloth (Dyer & Verdoorn, 3719). Whereas it
is now far more luxuriant than the typical form, another
specimen of the same species collected at the same time shows
a closer likeness to the tj^e in habit. These observations,
however, were made only after the plate had been prepared,
when the type specimen originally collected in Namaqualand
was obtained on loan from the Albany Museum Herbarium,
Grahamstown.
There are several dwarf species of Crassula similar in
appearance to C. namaquensis, and confusion in identification
is not unlikely unless great care is taken. Particular care
should be taken in comparing the shape of the corolla-lobes
and the nature of the hairs or papillae on the leaves. In the
present species the leaf -surface is provided with swollen hair-
like structures, which are more or less intermediate in character
between hairs and papillae. The plants thrive in a sandy loam
in cultivation, and in view of the arid nature of the natural
habitat, water should be given only sparingly.
In his work on the genus Crassula in the Transactions of
the Royal Society of South Africa, 1929, Schonland upholds
two varieties, lutea and brevifolia, which he had created earlier.
The standing of these varieties will not be discussed now owing
to the absence of authentically named specimens in the
National Herbarium.
Description. — A tufted dwarf succulent, silvery, with
recurved papillose pubescence. Branches short, occasionally
up to 8 cm. long in cultivation, producing terminal scapes.
Leaves usually dense, the pairs united round the stem, the
older ones sometimes shghtly twisted from the base, up to
4 cm. long, 1*5 cm. broad and 0*75 cm. thick, usually smaller,
convex on both surfaces or the upper one nearly flat, densely
recurved-papillose-pubescent. Scape dark mauvish purple,
up to 25 cm. tall, with 2-4 opposite pairs of pedunculate sub-
capitate cymules; cymule-branches 0*5-3 cm. long. Sepals
lanceolate-oblong, obtuse, 1*5-2 mm. long, with white
pubescence. Petals creamy-white, united at the base; the
free parts lanceolate, 4 mm. long, 1*5 mm. broad, boat-shaped
in the lower half, thickened towards the apex and with a small
mucro behind the spreading tip. Filaments attached at the
corolla sinuses; anthers mauve, turning nearly black while
dehiscing. Carpels up to about 2 mm. long, with a short
style and an oblique brownish-pink stigma ; squamae orange-
coloured, 1*25 mm. long, subquadrate. (National Herbarium,
Pretoria, No. 27,040.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 908. — Pig. 1, branch of cultivated plant natural size; 2, upper
surface of leaf enlarged showing papillose-pubescence ; 3, flower ; 4, flower in
longitudinal section ; 5, carpel and squama.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
1
E.KBur^es del.
Plate 909.
CEROPEGIA MULTIFLORA.
Cape Province, Bechuanaland, Transvaal.
AsCLEPIAD ACEAE .
Ceropegia multiflora Baker in Ref. Bot. 1 :t.l0 (1869) ; N. E. Br. in
FI. Cap. 4, 1 : 829 (1908).
Ceropegia multiflora is remarkable for the hair-like tips to
the corolla-lobes, which are fused at the apex. The fusing
of the lobes at the apex is an interesting, though not very
unusual, feature in the genus. The first record of the species
was made by Burchell, when in November 1812, he collected
specimens “ near the sources of the Kuruman River ”. The
present subject was collected by Dr. F. van der Merwe in the
northern Transvaal on the Rooiberg, and flowered at the
Division of Botany and Plant Pathology in January, 1943.
It differs from the typical form principally in the pubescent
stem, the more numerous flowers in the cymes, and in the
shape of the upper leaves. The leaves of the t5rpical form are
described as “ linear-subterete ”. In his revision of the genus
in Flora Capensis, N. E. Brown created a variety latifolia on a
cultivated plant at Kew, which had broader leaves than the
type. It will be noted from the figures that our plant is a
form with “ linear-subterete ” basal leaves, which give place
to ovate ones higher on the stem. It has been noted in other
related species that pubescence and shape of leaf are variable
characters, which are of questionable toxonomic importance.
The species was first illustrated in Saunders’ Refugium
Botanicum, vol. 1, 1869, t.lO.
The distribution range of Ceropegia multi flora extends from
Colesberg district in the Cape Province into Bechuanaland and
the northern Transvaal, south of the Zoutpansberg. In a
footnote to the specific description in Flora Capensis, Brown
queried the locality of Colesberg, but there now seems no
doubt that it is correct since a definite record has lately been
received from the adjacent district of Philipstown. As the
name “ multi flora ” implies, this is one of the most free-
flowering species in the genus. It is readily grown in part-
shade in a light soil mixture.
Desckiption. — Tuber somewhat flattened, up to about 8 cm. in width.
Stem mostly unbranched, except for abbreviated shoots which bear cymes
on the upper portions, twining, puberulous with somewhat reflexed hairs,
with an uneven purple striation on the older parts. Leaves slightly reflexed,
polymorphic ; the basal ones subsessile, linear-subterete, channelled down
the upper face, 6-7-5 cm. long, 4-5 mm. broad; the upper ones becoming
broader and shorter, with petioles 5-10 mm. long; blade 3-^ cm. long,
1-5-2 cm. broad, apiculate, somewhat fleshy, 2 mm. thick, puberulous with
reflexed hairs ; midrib and 2-4 lateral veins impressed on the upper surface.
Cymes sessile or very shortly pedunculate, lateral at the nodes, shortly
branched, bearing up to .30 or more flowers, developed successively on the
cyme branches ; pedicels about 1 cm. long, slender, with few hairs. Sepals
Unear-lanceolate or subulate, 2-5 mm. long. Corolla in bud with the lobes
forming a very slender needle-like beak and with the fused bases forming
small ribs above the tube, greenish, 2-25-2-6 cm. long ; tube shghtly curved
or nearly straight, 1-7-1-9 cm. long, 4-5 mm. diameter at the inflated base,
abruptly contracted to 2 mm. diameter in the cylindric upper portion, within
the inflated portion with a few spreading papfllae-hke processes with purple
tips in short longitudinal rows, thinly tomentose within the slender portion ;
lobes ascending spreading, lanceolate in the lower half, with shghtly reflexed
margins and retrorse pubescent on the inner surface, abruptly narrowed and
hairlike in the upper half and horizontaUy inflexed and connate at the tips.
Outer corona white, cup-like, obtusely pentagonal, about 1 mm. high and
shghtly higher than the staminal-column, forming 5 sac-like pockets with a
minutely toothed margin. Inner corona-lobes white, arising from within the
outer corona, hnear, 1-5 mm. long, incumbent on the backs of the anthers
at the base and then cormivent erect (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No.
27,084.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 909. — Fig. 1, twining stem natural size; 2 and 2a, basal leaf and
cross-section ; 3 and 3a, upper leaf and cross-section ; 4 and 4a, flower and
longitudinal section enlarged ; 5, corona ; 6, habit.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
910
E.K. Burges del.
Plate 910.
ALOE TIDMARSHI.
Cafe Province.
Ldjaceae.
Aloe Tidmarshi Muller, sp. nov. ; Aloe ciliaris Haw. var. Tidmarshi Schonl.
in Rec. Alb. Mus. 1, 41 (1903); Berger in Das Pflanzenr. 33, 4, 38,
p. 255 (1908.)
This plant was first described as a variety of Aloe ciliaris
by Schonland in 1903. A. Tidmarshi and A. ciliaris are
found together at Stones Hill, near Grahamstown, in the
eastern Cape Province, but have not been found in association
elsewhere. A. Tidmarshi is restricted in its distribution to
the temperate slopes of the Zuurberg Mountain from the
Albany Division into the Uitenhage division whereas A. ciliaris
extends from Stones Hill on the Zuurberg into the scrub bush
of the drier and hotter river valleys and coastal belt from the
Qora River to the neighbourhood of Port Elizabeth. The
specimen of A. Tidmarshi figured here was collected on the
Zuurberg, Uitenhage division, by Mr. G. W. Reynolds. It was
cultivated in Pretoria by Dr. F. S. Muller and flowered there
in November, 1942.
The differences between A. Tidmarshi and A. ciliaris are
quantitative and not qualitative. In other words the two
plants are equal except in the actual size of the organs,
A, Tidmarshi being smaller in all respects than A. ciliaris.
Hence it was not unnatural that Schonland should have
regarded the former as a variety of the latter. Further light
has been thrown on the relationship between the two species
in a thesis entitled “ A Chromosome Study of a number of
species of the genus Aloe L. with special reference to the
morphology and significance of the somatic chromosomes ”,
by Dr. F. S. Muller. For this work, which will be published
fully elsewhere. Dr. Muller has recently been awarded the
D.Sc. degree with honours by the University of Pretoria. In
it he shows that A. Tidmarshi is a diploid form with 14
chromosomes, whereas A. ciliaris is a polyploid (hexaploid)
with 42 chromosomes. His repeated efforts to hybridise the
two plants have failed, neither have any intermediate forms
been discovered in nature. On the other hand both are
normally fertile and breed true.
To summarise Dr. Muller’s conclusions regarding Aloe
Tidmarshi and A. ciliaris: (1) they are intersterile ; (2)
normally fertile and self-perpetuating ; (3) differ quanti-
tatively not qualitatively ; (4) mainly geographically isolated.
The evidence seems conclusive that the Opioid form A.
Tidmarshi gave rise to the polyploid form A. ciliaris and that
the increased vigour of the polyploid enabled it to migrate
from the temperate habitat of the Zuurberg into the neigh-
bouring more arid areas. For purposes of botanical nomen-
clature, therefore, there seems ample justification for regard-
ing the two plants as distinct species.
In the Records of the Albany Museum, Schonland l.c.,
p. 42, founded a second variety of A. ciliaris (var. Flanagani)
on a single specimen collected near Komgha by H. G. Flanagan.
Dr. Muller states that it is not worthy of differentiation from
the typical form and he, therefore, places the name in
synonymy under A. ciliaris.
Description. — A weak succulent shrub several metres taU, usually
branched. Branches about 7 mm. in diameter, with internodes about 1-25
cm. long. Leaves sheathing at the base, covering the internodes ; sheaths
light reddish or greenish, striped with the same colour but darker; blade
lanceolate, acute, about 6 cm. long, concave, about 1-75 cm. broad towards
the base, with the margin furnished with teeth; teeth small towards the
apex, slightly larger towards the base and minutely cUiate on the margin
of the sheath. Inflorescence produced from near the apex of the stems ;
peduncle compressed at the base and with 2 opposite minute wings, up to
about 20 cm. long and with 3-4 sterile bracts. Raceme 10-15 cm. long, of
moderate density ; pedicels 7-10 mm. long ; bracts narrowly lanceolate,
about half the length of the pedicels ; perianth bright coral red tipped with
pale greenish-yellow, subcylindric and only very shghtly curved, about
2-25 cm. long ; inner perianth-segments spathidate. Stamens and style
ultimately slightly exserted. (National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,130.)—
R. A. Dyer.
Plate 910. — Fig. 1, inflorescence natural size; 2, leaf natural size; 3,
portion of stem and leaf-bases ; 4, pedicel and bract ; 5, flower on pedicel
with bract ; 6, longitudinal section of flower (variouslv enlarged) ; 7, habit.
F.P.S.A., July 1943.
911
E.K.Burg'es del.
Plate 911.
ALOE REITZII,
Transvaal.
Liliaceae.
Aloe Reitzii Reynolds in Journ. of S.A. Botany, July, 1937.
It may seem surprising that so striking an Aloe from a not
very remote part of the Transvaal should have been described
for the first time as recently as 1937. This does not mean,
however, that it had never been seen before Mr. F. W. Reitz
discovered it, but that it had not been brought to the notice
of a systematist. It would seem that, like a related species,
Aloe petricola, this one is fairly localised in its distribution,
having so far been found only in the high veld to the west of
Belfast, northwards to Tonteldoos and 20 miles farther north
in the hills near the Klipriver School. On Plate 155 in Vol.
IV of this work the related species A. petricola Pole Evans is
figured. Comparing that plate with this one, it will be seen
that while these species may be in the same group, they are
nevertheless distinct. Another subacaulescent species, A.
aculeata Pole Evans, with long dense racemes of reflexed
flowers, is figured on Plate 371 in Vol. X of this work. Besides
the spiny leaves, A. aculeata differs in having a shorter perianth
somewhat differently shaped and not incurved. It may be
interesting to compare also Aloe africana L., a tall-stemmed
Aloe figured on Plate 333, Vol IX. In this case, besides other
points of difference, the perianth-tube is curved outwards.
The resemblance lies in the dense raceme with reflexed
flowers and the more or less cylindric perianth, with the stamens
ultimately exserted.
Aloe Reitzii differs in its time of flowering from the other
three species mentioned above, for it blooms in the late summer
— February to March — whereas the others are winter flowering.
A related species from Natal, A. Oerstneri Reynolds, not yet
figured in this work, has the same flowering time, but differs
in a shorter and differently shaped perianth.
The plant figured here was flowering in the gardens of
the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology in March, 1943,
having been collected some years back by ]^. J. C. van Balen
at the type locality, the rocky slopes at Tonteldoos, 16 miles
north-west of Dullstroom.
Description : — Plant sub-acaulescent (sometimes shortly
caulescent). Leaves about 45 in a rosette, dull grey-green,
ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, about 60 cm. long, 10 cm. wide
and 2 cm. thick, arcuate erect; upper surface more or less
flat, smooth, thinly covered by a bloom; lower surface con-
vex, smooth, thinly covered by a bloom, sometimes with a few
spines near the apex; marginal spines brownish-red, about
3 mm. long and about 7-15 mm. apart. Inflorescences 1-2
to a rosette, 1*3 metres tall (sometimes 2 m. tall), about 3-
branched from below the middle (sometimes with more
branches). Peduncle stout, somewhat laterally compressed,
about 35 cm. tall, 3 cm. in broadest width and 1*5 cm.
in narrow width; branches arcuate, ascending with long
erect terminal racemes. Sterile bracts oblong, abruptly
acuminate, about 1*3 cm. long and 8 mm. wide, reflexed from
the broad subcordate base. Racemes about 45 cm. long,
growing longer with age, densely flowered and more or less
cylindric, broadest across the open flowers. Floral bracts
like the sterile, but decreasing in size towards the apex of the
raceme and strongly reflexed. Pedicels green, about 3 mm.
long, cernuous. Flowers strongly reflexed, densely spirally
imbricate; the youngest buds green; the older with the
exposed surfaces bright red-orange, as in the flowers; the
matured flowers fading to a yellow-orange or lemon colour.
Perianth bright orange-red or crimson on parts exposed to the
sun, lemon-coloured beneath, cylindric, slightly trigonous,
curved towards axis, about 4 cm. long, 8 mm. diameter about
the middle, narrowing towards the throat, where it is 5 mm.
diameter, with the obtuse apices of the lobes slightly recurv-
iug; outer segments free for about 2 cm.; inner segments
adnate to the tube dorsally but free along the margins right
to the base. Stamens ultimately exserted; fllaments yellow-
orange where exposed; anthers brownish-red, 4 mm. long.
Ovary green, 8 mm. long; style yellow, eventually exserted.
(National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,132.) — I. C. Ver-
DOORN.
Plate 911. — Fig. 1, whole plant much reduced; 2, flower, pedicel and
bract natural size ; 3, floral bract ; 4, longitudinal section of the perianth
slightly enlarged.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
912
E.K. Burges del.
Plate 912.
SCILLA GLAUCESCENS.
Transvaal.
Liliaceab.
Scilla (Ledebouria) glaucescens F. van der Merwe sp. nov., S. Oooperi
Hook fil. afifinis, sed foliis glaucescentibus saepe pruinosis baud longi-
tudinaliter striatis, racemis grandioribus diflfert.
Bulhus subglobosus ca. 2-3 cm. diametro. Folia 3-4, post racemi
matura, tandem lanceolato-ligulata, ca. 16-20 cm. longa, in media 2-5 cm.
lata, glauco-pruinosa. Racemi ad 3, speciosi, ca. 6 cm. longi, 2-3-5 cm.
diametro, ad flores 50 ; pedicelli ca. 1 cm. longi, bracteis minutis ; segmenta
perianthii conniventia dein recurvata, bgulata, laete roseo-purpurea supra,
pallidiora infra : filamenta distincte segmentis breviora, purpurea : ovarium
breviter stipitatum, sex-sulcatum, basin versus discoideo-ampliatum, trilo-
culare, ovulis 6, stigma purpurea.
Tbansvaal : Carolina district, v.d. Merwe 2262.
This species resembles Scilla Cooperi Hook f. (Curtis’s
Bot. Mag. t. 5580, 1866) in its general appearance. It differs,
however, in its relatively wider and shorter leaves, and the
absence of vertical stripes on their underside.
The members of the subgenus Ledebouria which grow in
marshy places, as exemplified by S. saturata, are often dis-
tinguished by : (a) the more or less evenly-coloured pinkish
or purple perianth-segments {i.e., the absence of whitish
margins with a distinctly deeper middle band of colour),
(b) stamens definitely shorter than the perianth-segments,
(c) an ovary which, while often wider at its base, does not
show a distinct discoid shelf. This species conforms to the
first two of these characteristics, but not the third; for the
ovary has a distinct disc at its base. In this it agrees with
Scilla bella from Natal, and (judging from the plate quoted)
S. Cooperi. A frequently distinctive characteristic of S.
glaucescens is the pruinose-glaucous appearance of the leaves,
not easily brought out in an illustration. The plant here
figured was collected by the author among grass in damp
ground, on the farm “ Onbekend,” Carolina district, eastern
Transvaal, in November 1940, and flowered at the Division of
Botany and Plant Pathology, Pretoria, in November 1942.
It appears to be conspecific with plants collected on the grassy
slopes of Slangapies Mountain (F.v.d.M. 2073 in Nat. Herb.).
Description : — Bulb round, 2-3 cm. in diameter ; older
specimens showing a flattened stem at the base, 3-5 mm. long
and up to 1-5 cm. in diameter, from the sides of which roots
arise. Leaves 3-4, often not fully developed when the flowers
are open. Mature leaf bright glaucous green, often shghtly
pruinose, usually unmarked except for a few transverse stripes
on the underside at the base, fairly erect, lanceolate-hgulate,
about 15-20 cm. long, 2-5 cm. wide at the middle, narrowing
towards the base and the apex, the base wrapped round the
younger leaves and scape, concave on its upper surface.
Inflorescence brownish-green ; scape rather thicker than usual,
about 5 cm. or more below the raceme. Raceme dense, more
showy than in many other species, about 6 cm.’ long and
2-3*5 cm. in diameter, with up to about 50 bright lilac flowers.
Pedicels about 1 cm. long, subtended by a minute fleshy bract
with usually irregular membranous margin, and a smaller
bract beside it. Perianth-segments bright rose-hlac on the
upper surface and paler on the under-surface, connivent to
form a shallow cup, then bending outwards and downwards,
each about 5 mm. long and 1*5 mm. broad, ligulate with a
sharp upward-curving point. Stamens purple, distinctly
shorter than the segments. Ovary shortly stipitate, 2x3-
lobed, with a discoid widening at its base, 3-chambered, each
chamber with 3 ovules ; stigma purphsh, pointed.
Plate 912. — Fig, 1, plant in flower; 2, mature leaf taken from another
plant later ; 3, single flower, enlarged ; 4, ovary ; 5, part of rhachis, pedicels
and bracts.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
f
f
913
H. Brown del.
Plate 913.
SCILLA LANCEAEFOLIA.
Cape Province.
Liliaobae.
Scilla (Ledebouria) lanceaefolia (Jacq.) Baker in Saund. Ref. Bot.
iii. t. 182 (1870) nom. sol. non descr. et ic., Jacq. Ic. PI. Rar ii, 17, t.
402 (1793) ; non 8. lanceaefolia auct. plur.
The plant here figured was collected by the writer in stony
ground near Grey ton, Cape Province, in January 1940, and
fiowered in Pietermaritzburg in January 1943. Characteristic
of this species are : its relatively small size, smooth black bulb,
leaves nearly plane, lanceolate with a rather rounded body
and distinct long-acuminate apex, evenly and closely marked
on the upper surface by green blotches on a uniformly lighter
green background. The plant has been identified from
Jacquin’s plate, with which it agrees very closely indeed, when
allowance is made for the more conventional treatment of the
subject in the older illustration. Jacquin’s specimen may well
have been one collected by Scholl and Boos (the Viennese
gardeners who collected specimens for the Royal Gardens at
Schonbrunn) in the neighbourhood of Genadendal, which is
very near the site of our specimen. In both this plate and
Jacquin’s, there is no sign of expanding ovules, possibly
because the natural pollinating agent has been absent.
No South African species of Scilla has been confused as
often as this species. No precise locality or herbarium
material is available for any of the plants figured in early
plates. Ten years after Jacquin’s description was published
we find a plant figured as Lachenalia lanceaefolia by Gawler in
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. xvii, t. 643 (1803), which in
the light of our present knowledge is obviously a different
species, probably from the eastern Cape Province. The same
applies to Redout^’s beautiful plate, t. 59, of Lachenalia
lanceaefolia in Les Liliacees (1807), and to Drimia lanceaefolia
in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, t. 1380 (1811), as well as the
Drimia lanceaefolia figured in Loddiges Botanical Cabinet,
t. 278, vol. iii (1818) ; although another plate in the same
publication, t. 1041, vol. xi (1825), labelled Drimia ax^uminoM,,
appears to come sufficiently close to the present species to be
considered identical with it.
In 1821 Roth created the genus Ledebouria for a species
said to have come from India. In 1870 Baker described a
plant as Scilla lanceaefolia which, though a member of the
Ledebourias, appears from the plate (Saunders Refugium
Botanicum, iii, t. 182) more likely to be a S. ovatifoUa, closely
resembling the plant figured in the following plate, 1. 183, under
that name. In 1873 Baker (Journ. Linn. Soc. xiii) classified
the Ledebourias as a subgenus of Scilla, and rightly included
variously Cape species previously referred to as Lachenalia,
Drimia and Scilla. In 1903 Medley-Wood (Natal Plants, iii,
t. 202) figured another species of Ledebouria as Scilla lanceae-
folia. Thus, with one probable exception, this httle plant is
now figured for the first time since its publication in 1793.
Compared with the rest of South Africa, the western Cape
Province appears to be poor in members of this genus, only
S. undulata and the present species being recorded.
The original spelling of lanceaefolia is retained in preference
here to the modified form lanceifolia introduced by C. A. Smith
in Kew Bulletin 1930, 243.
Description : — Bulb round, up to about 3 cm. in diameter, covered with
a smooth black tunic, and showing a disc-like stem below. Leaves up to 5,
bright green, crowded on the upper surface wdth dark green blotches, plain
on the under surface except for a few purple speckles, up to about 2 cm.
wide and 8 cm. long when flowers are open, characteristically lanceolate with
widened body and acuminate point, with smooth margins, plane. Inflores-
cence 1-3 ; scape in flower about 16 cm. long, half of which consists of a lax
raceme of 30 — 40 flowers ; axis green with purplish speckles. Pedicel 1 cm.
or longer, slender, rigid, subtended by a small rounded fleshy bract. Perianth
segments form a deep cup before curving outwards and downwards until, at
one stage, the points touch the pedicel, after this stage the segments again
regain the upright position ; each segment of a brownish-purple colour with a
lighter margin, about 5 mm. long, 1-5 mm. wide. Stamens crimson below
and paler above, giving an attractive jewel-like appearance to the group in
each open flower, erect, almost as long as the segments ; anthers covered with
yellow poUen. Ovary green, stipitate, discoidally widened by three double
prominences around its base, with 2 ovules in each chamber; style pale;
stigma irregularly pointed.
(F. van der Merwe 2139 in National Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,142.)
Plate 913. — Fig. 1, flowering plant natiual size; 2, flowers; 3, side
view of ovary ; 4, cross-section of ovary, 2, 3, 4 enlarged ; 5, a mature leaf
from another plant, natural size.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
E.K,Eur|es del.
Plate 914.
RHYNCHELYTRUM REPENS.
South Africa, Tropical Africa, Arabia.
Gramineae.
Rhynchelytrum repens (Willd.) C. E. Hubbard in Kew Bull. 1934,
110; Saccharum repens WiUd. sp. PI. 1, 322 (1798); Tricholaena rosea
Nees, Stapf in El. Cap. 7, 443 (1899) ; Rhynchelytrum roseum Stapf et
C. E. Hubbard ex Bews, The World’s Grasses, 223 (1929), and in El.
Trop. Afr. 9, 880 (1930).
This, the first grass to be figured for the Flowering
Plants of South Africa, is one which needs little introduction, for
it is a widespread and often dominant constituent of the veld.
Rhynchelytrum repens, or “ Red-top,” as it is commonly
called, flowers profusely from midsummer until late autumn,
and is very variable in duration, habit and size. The plant
figured here was prepared from a specimen flowering in the
grounds of the Union Buildings, Pretoria, in April, 1943, and
represents the ruderal form that occurs in great abundance on
old cultivated lands, roadsides, etc. It generally behaves as an
annual, and is a loose-growing grass with geniculately ascend-
ing culms and broad, flat leaves. Another variety, found
mainly in the drier parts of the country and on undisturbed
veld, is a densely tufted perennial with more erect culms and
narrower leaves. The other forms are intermediate between
these two extremes.
It is one of our most ornamental grasses, the silky hairs of
the spikelets giving the inflorescence a delicate feathery
appearance. A field of Red-top is a conspicuously beautiful
sight when the late afternoon sunlight imparts a shining
radiance to the massed flowers. The hairs are generally of a
reddish hue, varying from pale pink to deep rose. This,
however, is not a constant feature, for they are sometimes
white, grey, mauve or purple, the age of the inflorescence being
a factor which influences the colour range. In R. setifolium,
the only other species common in South Africa, they are usually
white, and frequently more glistening than in R. repens.
Owing to the numerous gradations and conditions found in the
latter species, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish it from
R. setifolium, which is, however, always a densely tufted
perennial with filiform, convolute leaves. It rarely, if ever,
occurs as a weed, and the slopes of hills are its usual habitat.
The distribution of E. repens is wide. It is found all over
Africa, as well as in Arabia, and has been introduced into many
countries, including India and North America, where it is
valued as a pasture grass. In South Africa its economic
importance is considered negligible.
Description : — Annual or tufted perennial up to over 1 m.
high, with geniculately ascending or erect culms, sometimes
rooting at the lower nodes, usually slender, glabrous or pilose
from smaU tubercles. Leaves glabrous or hairy ; sheath finely
striate or smooth; ligule a ciliate rim up to 2 mm. long;
blade 5-30 cm. long, flat, convolute or folded, linear, finely
acute. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle, silvery-
white, pink, crimson, mauve or purple, generally 5-13 cm. long,
silkily hairy; rhachis slender, glabrous or pubescent at the
nodes; branches finely fifiform, paired or solitary, usually
divided from the base; pedicels capillary and mostly very
flexuous, from 1 to 8 mm. long, nearly always with long, silky
hairs from below their thickened tips. Spikelets pale or light
to dark brown, often with darker beaks, 2-6 mm. long, about
2 mm. wide, ovate to oblong, silky-pilose, smooth or tuber-
culate; lower glume about 1 mm. long, obtuse, truncate or
emarginate, 1 -nerved, pilose, bearded at the base; upper
glume as long as the spikelet, semi-ovate in profile, usually
very gibbous below the middle, tapering upwards into a beak,
shortly 2-lobed, mucronate or with an awn up to 4 mm. long
from the sinus, 5-nerved, with ciliate margins, the rest densely
pilose to villous with hairs which exceed the tip, from the base
to the middle, otherwise glabrous; valves 2; lower sub-
tending a male flower or barren, similar to the upper glume,
but narrower and less gibbous; upper subtending a bisexual
flower, emarginate, 2-2*5 mm. long, faintly 5-nerved, thinly
chartaceous, glabrous or rarely with a tuft of long hairs from
near the middle; pales 2; lower lanceolate, membranous,
subequal to the lower valve, glabrous or scantily hairy from
minute tubercles, with ciliate keels; upper slightly shorter
than the upper valve, membranous, glabrous. Anthers linear,
2-2*5 mm. long. Grain oblong, 1-2 mm. long. (National
Herbarium, Pretoria, No. 27,139.) — L. Chippindall.
Plate 914. — Fig. 1, spikelet; 2, lower glume ; 3, upper glume ; 4, lower
valve; 5, lower pale; 6, upper valve ; 7, upper pale; 8, ovary.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
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Plate 915.
MASSONIA PUSTULATA.
Ca/pe Province.
Liliaoeae.
Massonia pustiilata Jacq., Coll., IV, p. 177 ; Flor. Cap. Vol. Vl,
p. 416 (1897).
The type of this species was figured by Jacquin in his
Hortus Schoenbrunnensis (t. 454) in 1804. The plant depicted
was probably grown in the Emperor of Austria’s garden at
Schoenbrunn, and represents a somewhat etiolated greenhouse
specimen. We are fortunate, therefore, in having a more
normal example of this interesting species for publication here.
It was collected by Mr. George Linley at Cape Infanta in the
Swellendam Division, and grown by the late Mr. V. S. Peers in
his garden at Fish Hoek. It was also found by Dr. M. A.
Pocock at Witsands in the same region. Mr. Linley states
that it was growing so near the shore that it was splashed by
the sea at high tide.
Description : — Plant glabrous. Bulb flattened at base
and apex, 3*4 cm. diameter. Leaves 2, green, flecked with
liverish brown, 7*5 cm. long, 13 cm. broad, cordate, with about
20 nerves, with the surface between the nerves raised and
densely pustulate. Inflorescence dense, up 7 cm. diameter.
Bracts ovate-lanceolate, acute; outer 4-3 cm. long, 2*5 cm.
broad; inner ones successively narrower and shorter; inner-
most 3*2 cm. long, 9 mm. broad. Pedicels 1*3 cm. long.
Perianth-segments creamy-white, with the free portion 1*2 cm.
long, folded back to form a collar round the perianth tube;
tube 1*2 cm. long. Filaments white, connate at the base to
form a tube which is adnate to the perianth, total length 1*8-
2 cm. ; staminal-tube pinkish in colour, 2-5-3 mm. long.
Ovary 7-8 mm. long; style pink, 2-2 cm. long when young,
finally 2-8 cm. long and exceeding the stamens. (Linley in
Bolus Herbarium No. 22,748.) — F. M. Leighton.
Plate 915. — Fig. 1, plant natural size; 2, outer bract; 3, inner bract;
4, flower x 2; 5, young flower, longitudinal section x 2; 6, old flower
longitudinal section x 2.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
Plate 916.
MIMETES STOKOEI.
Cape Province.
Peoteaceae.
Mimetes Stokoei Phillips & Hutchinson, Kew Bull., p. 198 (1932).
On four previous occasions we have figured species of the
genus Mimetes (see Pis. 36, 58, 82, 128) and appropriately
enough all have been collected by ]\Ir. T. P. Stokoe. The
species shown on the accompanying plate is one of the hand-
some species in the genus, and no coloured illustration can
depict faithfully the beautiful satiny sheen of the leaves. The
leaves subtending the flower-heads have a pinkish tinge ; the
styles are yellow above and reddish towards the base and the
stigmas almost black. The whole combination of colours
having a very striking effect.
The species is one of the many Cape plants that are fast
disappearing. Mr. Stokoe in a letter dated the 27th May,
1943, accompanying the specimen writes as follows : “ Since
I first collected this species twenty-one years ago, only once
have I had a flowering head, and that from a flower picker,
from whom I traced the origin of its source. I visited this
site ten years ago and found five small plants, from one of
which my specimen had been plucked. I left them untouched
to fruit and propagate. Early in January this year, I
revisited the area. All the plants were dead but, nearby, I
found three plants but not in flower. I returned last week and
on the 24th instant, of the three plants one was dead; the
others were in different stages of flowering and had two
flowers . . . other flowers were in the fruiting stage but I am
afraid they were infertile.”
We imply from the letter received from Mr. Stokoe that he
collected the specimen at the type locality, viz. near Hangklip
on the Hottentot Holland Mountains.
Description ; — Branches villous. Leaves somewhat ap-
pressed to the branches, sessile, 6-7 cm. long, 3*5-4 cm. broad,
ovate, shortly 3-toothed above, rounded at the base, silky.
Flower heads 5-8, in the axils of the upper leaves. Involucral-
bracts 3-4-seriate, ovate, oblong, or linear, viUous or sub-
glabrous, densely cihate. Perianth-segments 4*5 cm. long,
villous ; hmb 9 mm. long. Anthers linear, with an ovate apical
gland. Ovary villous; style 6*5 cm. long; stigma somewhat
club-shaped, ribbed on one side. (National Herbarium,
Pretoria, No. 27,141.) — E. P. Phillips.
Plate 916. — Fig. 1, branch, life size; 2, flower head; 3, bracteoles; 4,
flower; 5, anther; 6, stigma; 7, habit.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
97 7
Plate 917.
STAPELIA MEINTJIESII.
Transvaal.
Asclepiadacbae.
Stapelia Meintjiesii Verdoorn sp. nov. Stapelia Oettleffii Pott et
8. desmetianae N.E. Br. affinis ab hac gemmis aeuminatis, foliis
brevioribus ; ab ilia lobis coroUae intus glabris differ! .
Planta basi ramosa. Caules 4-angulati, velutino-pubescentes, decum-
benti-erecti, circiter 14-20 cm. longi, 2 cm. crassi, anguUs compressis. Folia
3-4 mm. longa, erecta. Pedicelli circiter 5 cm. longi, 5 mm. crassi, puberuli.
Calyx puberulus; lobi 13 mm. longi, anguste lanceolati. Gemma viridi-
lutea, late ovata, acuminata, puberula. Corolla circiter 16 cm. diametro,
extra viridi-lutea, puberula, intus purpurea, transverse rugosa, basi loborum
inter lineis pupureis rosacea vel viridi-lutea, pars disciformis depressa
5 cm. diametro, pUis longis erectis purpureis obtecta; lobi primum valde
reflexi, 6-7 cm. longi, circiter 3 cm. lati, ovato-lanceolati, basi pilosi ceterum
glabri, marginibus pilis longis purpureis ciliatis. Corona atropurpurea ;
lobi exteriores ascendentes ad apicem abrupte recurvi, 7 mm. longi, 2 mm.
lati, lineari-oblongi, concavi, truncati, apiculati, apiculis 1 mm. longis,
acutis ; lobi interiores erecti, bipartiti, lobulo exteriore 9 mm. longo 3-5 mm.
lato oblongo, basi vel altiore interiore adnato; lobulo interiore subulato
erecto vel leviter curvato exteriore pauUo altiore.
ZouTPANSBEKG DiSTEiCT ; Masequa’s Poort, 3| miles beyond Wylies
Poort, July 1938, Meintjies in National Herbarium No. 24,204; Dec. 1941,
Meintjies in National Herbarium No. 27,144 flowered and figured at Division
of Botany & Plant Pathology, Pretoria 1943 (Type) ! Without exact
locality Pienaar in Govt. Herbarium No. 11,245 (now in National Herbarium)
is probably this species.
Stapelia Meintjiesii falls among the large-flowered species
of the section Stapeltonia, which is characterised by having
the inner corona-lobes of an inner horn with a dorsal wing.
The exact shape of the corona-lobes and the degree to which the
dorsal wing is fused to the inner horn are not always constant,
and it is not advisable to rely on these characters when deflning
a species. In the majority of flowers examined in this case
the dorsal wing was free almost to the base, or at least for half
its length, but in a flower on the specimen collected by Mr.
Pienaar the wing was adnate all the way. The species described
here may easily be distinguished from the two largest-flowered
species in this section, S. nohilis and S. gigantea, by its much
darker-coloured inner surface, which is not pubescent all over.
The distribution of S. nohilis and S. gigantea includes the region
where our species is found. The closest relative found in the
same region is Stapelia Oettleffii Pott, which, however, differs
markedly in having much longer rudimentary leaves than our
species (10-12 mm. as against 3-4 mm.) and the bud is not
acute. The open flower differs in having a much smaller disc
(2*5 cm. diameter as against 5 cm. diameter), and the narrower
lobes are conspicuously marked with yellowish transverse
lines. Another related species found so far only in the Cape
Province, commonly in the south-eastern Cape, Stapelia
desmetiana, differs in having the entire inner surface covered
by simple straight hairs. In Volume II of “ The Stapeheae ”
by White and Sloane, on page 549, a specimen is figured and
shortly described which, as far as one can tell, resembles our
plant closely. It is supposed to be a hybrid which arose in
the greenhouse at Pasadena, U.S.A. The habit of the lobes
curving backwards when the flower opens was observed in
our specimens too, and it was found that if at this stage the
corolla-lobes were forcibly straightened, an annulus was formed
on the disc (as seen in the White and Sloane figure), but when
the lobes straightened with age this annulus does not appear,
the whole corolla then becoming withered and limp.
kir. B. Meintjies, of Johannesburg, found this species in
1938 and again in 1941 at Masequa’s Poort in the Zoutpans-
berg. He recognised it as being distinct from the known species
of Stapelia in that region, and an examination of his specimens
at the Division of Botany and Plant Pathology confirmed this
opinion. Living plants were given to this Division by Mr.
Meintjies, and when one flowered in 1943 it was figured, and
appears on the accompanying plate.
Description : — Plant branching from near the base. Stems 4-angled,
velvety pubescent, decumbent-erect, about 14-20 cm. long and up to 2 cm.
square, angles compressed, sides concave; rudimentary leaves erect, about
3^ mm. long. Pedicels from near the base of the stem, about 5 cm. long and
5 mm. diameter, shortly puberulus. Calyx-lobes 13 mm. long, narrowly
lanceolate, pubescent. Bud greenish-yeUow, broadly ovate, pointed,
appressedly pubescent. Corolla with lobes expanded about 16 cm. in dia-
meter, dorsally pale yeUowish-green and puberulus, the inner face dark
reddish-purple, transversely rugose with the lines between the dark ridges
in basal third of lobes pale pinkish to yeUowish-green, the disc and base of
the lobes covered with long, erect, soft purple hairs about 1 cm. long ; disc
depressed, 5 cm. in diameter; lobes strongly reflexing when flower opens,
6-7 cm. long, about 3 cm. wide at base, ovate-lanceolate, glabrous on upper
two-thirds of the inner face, ciliate with several rows of long purple hairs
about 1 cm. long. Corona dark purple; outer lobes ascending, abruptly
spreading near the top, about 7 mm. long and 2 mm. broad, linear-oblong,
channelled along inner face, shouldered near the apex, with the shoulders
short and broad ; apical tooth 1 mm. long, acute, slightly recurved ; inner
corona-lobes purple, erect, consisting of a dorsal wing and an inner horn;
dorsal wing about 9 mm. long and 3-5 mm. broad, adnate at the base (or
sometimes aU the way up) to the inner horn; inner horn subulate, shghtly
overtopping the dorsal wing, erect or slightly outward curving.
Plate 917. — Fig. 1, plant; 2, pedicel and calyx lobes; 3, corona.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
i
Plate 918.
GARDENIA CORNUTA.
Zululand, Natal.
Rubiaceae.
Gardenia cornuta Hemsl. in Hook. Icon. PI. 9, t. 2809 (1906).
This plant was recorded first by W. T. Gerrard about
1870, but it was not described until 1906, when Hemsley
published an account of it in Hooker’s leones Plantarum under
tab. 2809. That plate was prepared partly from Gerrard’s
original specimen purchased by Kew in 1872, and partly from
a painting and pressed fiowering specimen presented to the
institution by Mrs. K. Saunders, in whose garden at Eshowe
a plant flowered in 1900.
Hemsley draws particular attention to the structure of
the calyx of Gardenia cornuta Hemsl. as being peculiar in the
genus. He had not seen fresh fruits, or he might well have
remarked on them also, as no other species in South Africa
compares for beauty with their glossy golden-yellow colora-
tion. The fruits develop abundantly on the abbreviated
shoots along the branches and, by their weight, bend the
branches gracefully outwards. It was in this condition that
numerous shrubs were observed by the writer in May, 1943,
in the Tugela River Valley near Middle Drift north of Krantz-
kop. Natal. Our illustration was made from a specimen
collected there. The species has been recorded from Zululand
by several collectors.
Fruiting branches of Gardenia cornuta remain most
decorative in a vase for at least a fortnight, and would prob-
ably last considerably longer if given proper care, since the
fruit is durable and the branches absorb water very readily.
Altogether it would appear to be a very desirable shrub for
cultivation, but no information as to its frost resistance is yet
available. It is now hoped to be able to put it to the test in
this respect from seed taken from the figured specimen.
Description : — Shrub up to 3 m. high, with erect and
spreading main branches. Branches tough, with smooth grey
bark, with numerous branchlets; branchlets arising mainly
in whorls of 3 at 5-10 cm. intervals, sometimes 1-2 of each
whorl poorly developed. Leaves aggregated at the ends of
twigs, hght glossy green, subsessUe, mostly obovate, obtuse,
cuneate at the base, 2-3 cm. long, broad ; stipules united into
a dentate collar round the nodes. {Flowers subterminal,
solitary, subsessile, with a narrow tube 5-6 cm. long and
spreading segments about 3 cm. long, see Hemsley e.c.).
Fruit golden-yellow, glossy, more or less pear-shaped, 4-4-5
cm. long, 3-3-75 broad, with a moderately soft outer covering
and strongly fibrous surrounding. The seed loculus, develop-
ing 1-6 short longitudinal cracks from the apex at maturity,
crowned by the persistent calyx and appendages. Calyx
appendages usually 6, linear, 1-T5 cm. long, curved spreading,
usually somewhat thickened and subterete towards the apex ;
limb 8-13 mm. long, unequally bilabiate. Seeds oblong to
irregularly orbicular, hard, flattened.
Plate 918. — Fig. 1, fruiting branch hfe size; 2, fruit showing persistent
calyx with appendages, and apical sphts ; 3, cross-section of fruit ; 4, habit.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
1
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Plate 919.
GLADIOLUS ROGERSII.
Cape Province.
Ibid ACE AE.
Gladiolus Rogersii Baker, Handb. Irid. 208 (1892) ; FI. Cap. 146
(1896) ; N. E. Brown in Journ. Linn. Soc. 48, 23 (1928).
The Riversdale “ bluebell,” as this plant is commonly
known, grows abundantly in several districts of the Cape
Province from Swellendam to Humansdorp. In the original
description Baker gives the type locality as “ Cape Flats,”
but N. E. Brown in his paper in the Journal of the Linnean
Society 1928 suggested that this was an error, since no other
specimen agreeing with it has been collected so far west. The
specimen which is the subject of our illustration was selected
from a bunch of similar blooms posted to the National
Herbarium in September 1942 from Kjiysna by Mrs. F. S.
Laughton.
As with many other members of the family Iridaceae in
South Africa, this plant, according to N. E. Brown, has been
confused on several occasions with closely alhed species, for
example, Baker included specimens of it under the names O.
inflatus and O. insolutus, and it has also been classified as a
variety of O. Bolusii Baker (var. Burchellii Bolus). N. E.
Brown discussed this aspect in his paper mentioned above,
based on the specimens of South African Iridaceae in Thun-
berg’s Herbarium, at Uppsala, Sweden. Brown makes a
further comment on the confusion of names in an article in
South African Gardening and Country Life, 1933, 267.
C. Ingram was not entirely satisfied with Brown’s identification,
and added yet another combination of names for our plant —
namely, O. Burchellii (Bolus) Ing., in Gardeners’ Chronicle
1932, 482. Dr. L. Bolus, who was good enough to examine
our specimen, agrees with the identification as G. Rogersii
Baker, but pointed out that the differences between some of
the related species are certainly very slight. The type plant
of O. Rogersii was named after the Rev. W. Moyle Rogers,
who collected it in 1859.
Description : — Rootstock a small tunicated corm about
1*25 cm. diameter. Stem up to about 40 cm. high including
the inflorescence, simple, slender, terete, glabrous, slightly
nodding in upper haK, 3-4-leaved. Leaves green, glabrous;
the lowest sheathing at the base, overtopping the inflorescence,
about 5-6 cm. long and 1*5 mm. broad, subterete, acute,
venation indistinct; uppermost leaf mostly sheathing, with
the free portion about 4-5 cm. long ; other leaves intermediate
in size. Inflorescence a secund spike; axis dull purplish,
slender, glabrous. Flowers up to 8, horizontally spreading.
Spathe-valves oblong, acute, navicular, with transparent vena-
tion, 2-2*7 cm. long; the upper ones gradually smaller.
Perianth mauvish-blue, curved, tubular towards the base with
spreading lobes; the tube slightly shorter than the spathe-
valves; the lobes unequal, all slightly recurved towards the
apex ; the upper 3 lobes unmarked, except for darker venation
in the middle one, broadly obovate, acute; the median lobe
2-3 cm. long, 1*6 cm. broad; lateral lobes 2 cm. long, 1*5 cm.
broad; the 3 lower lobes united for 5 mm. above the tube,
projecting ; the medium lobe with a hastate yellow mark near
the centre, outlined in purple, and the claw with purple spots
and streaks along the veins, slightly shorter than the two
lateral segments, 1*3 cm. long, 8 mm. broad; the lateral lobes
with an irregular cream-coloured band transversely across the
segments, with pale purple spots and stripes on the claw, 2*1
cm. long, 8 mm. broad. Stamens reaching haK-way up the
perianth-lobes ; anthers blue, 6 mm. long. Ovary green,
obovate, 5 mm. long with numerous ovules ; style longer than
the stamens, whitish, with bilobed stigmas fringed with a
hairy stigmatic margin. (National Herbarium, Pretoria No.
27,037.) — R. A. Dyer.
Plate 919. — Fig. 1, inflorescence and leaf, Ufe size; 2, flower with 3
upper lobes more recurved than usual ; 3, longitudinal section of perianth ;
4, top of style and stigmas ; 6, habit.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
9ZO
Plate 920.
PROTEA SUBPULCHELLA.
Cape Province.
Protbaceae.
Protea subpulchella Stapf in Curtis’s Bot. Mag. t. 9067 (1924-25) ;
P. pulchella Andr. Bot. Rep. t. 270 (1802) non Schrad. & Wndl.
(1796); Phillips & Stapf in El, Cap. 5, 1,567 (1912).
The material used for the present painting was forwarded
in July, 1943, by a member of the staff. Miss Pauline Kies.
She found the shrubs occurring fairly commonly on the top of
Helshoogte Pass, 1000-1500 ft. alt., between the Paarl and
Stellenbosch districts, the bright glossy red bracts making it
very conspicuous and attractive. The mountain slopes have
been burnt fairly regularly in past years, and the average
height of the shrubs was somewhat less than 1 m. (2-3 ft.).
The specimens collected by Miss Kies agree closely with
the description in Flora Capensis 5, 1, 567 (1912) of Protea
pulchella Andr. drawn up with a knowledge of the plant under
natural conditions. Andrews, however, based the name P.
pulchella on a plant cultivated in England from seed intro-
duced three years previously; this plant he described and
figured in his Botanist’s Repository, 1802. Unfortunately the
name P. pulchella had already been used in 1796 for an
Australian plant ; for which reason, according to International
Rules of Botanical Nomenclature 1935, the specific epithet
pulchella is invalid for Andrews’s species. The question arises
as to what name to give to it. The view was expressed by
Mr. N. S. Pillans of the Bolus Herbarium that the plant
described by Stapf as P. subpulchella was specifically equal to
to P. pulchella Andrews.
Stapf described P. subpulchella in Curtis’s Botanical
Magazine under t. 9057 (1924-25). The plant was grown
at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, Scotland, from seed
forwarded from Cape Town without an exact record of its
origin. While Stapf considered his P. subpulchella to be
closely allied to P. pulchella Andr., he refers to the relationship
as follows : “ There are three rather indifferent figures of it
(P. pulchella) in Andrews Botanical Repertorium (tt. 270,
277 and 442). They show some range of variation in the
colouring of the flower heads, but hardly any in their size,
nor do the herbarium specimens which I have seen warrant
the assumption that P. subpulchella is merely a reduced state
of a plant whose heads measure 9-10 cm. by 5-7*5 cm. It has,
in fact, by far the smallest heads of all the species of the
Speciosa section, to which it undoubtedly belongs.”
Our plant is in some respects, such as the stance of the
leaves and character of the inner bracts of the capitulum, more
hke P. subpulchellum Stapf than P. pulchella Andr., but the
measurements of the capitulum itself are nearer those of the
latter. What name should it bear ? If we agree with Mr.
Pdlans we must use the name P. subpulchella Stapf for all the
forms discussed above. If, on the other hand, we agree with
Stapf, it will be necessary to give P. pulchella Andr. a new
name, and still determine the specific identity of our plant.
Taking into consideration that both Andrews and Stapf had
before them young plants cultivated under different conditions,
the differences recorded by Stapf are, we agree with Mr.
Pillans, not inconsistent with the view that the various plants
are forms of one species. Hence the name P. subpulchella is
adopted.
The habitat range of P. subpulchella, as understood here,
is in the mountainous situations of the south-western Cape
Province from the Clanwilham district to the Cape Peninsula.
Desceiption : — A robust shrub up to about 5 ft. high, branches tomen-
tose, glabrescent with age. Leaves 4-16 cm. long, 7-17 cm. broad, mostly
hnear, acute, but some short ones obtuse and apiculate, with a prominent
midrib, pubescent when young, sometimes cdiate, glabrescent, with a pinkish
cartilaginous margin. Heads sessile, about 10 cm. long, 4-^-5 cm. diameter
about the middle, the bracts spreading wider with age, surrounded by the
upper foliage leaves. Involucralbracts 10-12-seriate ; the lowermost small,
pubescent, some with spreading tips, followed by others tightly pressed
together; upper red, ovate- or oblong-lanceolate, sometimes cihate, inner
oblong, linear and hnear-oblanceolate, mainly glabrous on the back with a
rose- or carmine-purple to black beard, exceeding the flowers. Perianth-
sheath about 6-5 cm. long, with some reddish hairs towards the top of the
expanded 3-keeled basal portion, whitish vfllous above; Hp 2 cm. long
(including awns), pubescent on the sides and more or less glabrous on the
back, 3-awned ; lateral awns 6-8 mm. long, filiform, slightly twisted near the
tips, villous, with or without intermixed purple hahs ; median awn half the
len^h of the others. Stamens 3, fertile; filaments 0-5 mm. long, dilated,
concave ; anthers linear, about 5 mm. long with an apical gland 1*5 mm. long ;
barren anther acute eglandular. Ovary about 3 mm. long, oblong, covered
with long reddish-brown hairs; style about 5 cm. long, slightly curved,
compressed below, terete above, pubescent; stigma slightly kneed at the
junction with the style, about 6 mm. long, linear, acute, flattened on the
dorsal surface and grooved on the face. (National Herbarium Pretoria, No.
27,143.) — E. A. Dyee.
Plate 920. — ^Fig. 1, flowering twig natural size; 2, flower with stigma
enclosed in perianth sheath natural size ; 3, Hp of perianth with awns and
stamens enclosed; 4, fertile anther dehisced; 5, sterile anther; 6, ovary
with base of style ; 7, stigma (3-7 enlarged) ; 8, habit.
F.P.S.A., October, 1943.
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