HPECIES OF MESEMRTfTANTEEJlUM. 



1:37 



South Africa. 



Collected during a journey made between tl 



18 



Yaiil 



River and Graaff Roinet in March to May 1812, B 



Huworth's description was made from living plants raised in England 

 from seeds coliecfed by Burchell, who did not preserve any specimen tf it, 

 so that the two drawings at Kew and the description represent all that is 

 known of it. Burchell has noted in his MSS. that the root is "fusiform, 

 multiplex/' which may mean that it either has a fleshy or woody much- 

 divided root or a cluster of routs something like those 'of a Dahlia 



on a 



small scale. Hawortl 



fast 



Ha 



but has thicker and less erect branches and leaves nearly three times as 



large. 



The M, testaceum of Sender in Fl. Cap. vol. ii. p. 441, and of Bergor, 

 Mesemb. p. 101, is based upon a plant collected by Zeyher on hills near the 

 Zwartkops liiver, in Tort Elizabeth Division, which is so far out of the 



region where Burchell found the plant that there is no probability of its 

 beini>- th 



g tnc same species 



M. TURBINIFORME, Ilaw. (§ Fissurata). Plant stemless, obconic, exactly 

 truncate at the top, obscurely dotted, two or three more times larger than 

 M. truiicaiellwn etc. — M. fnrhini/orme. Haw. Rev. p. 84 (1821) : Burchell 

 Trav. vol. i. p. 310: DC. Prodr. vol. iii. p. 417: Don, Gen. Syst. vol. iii'. 

 p. I 2(1 : Berger, Mesemb. p. 291. 



PiUESKA Div. At Zand Vlei, between Keikams Poort and the Orange 

 River, growing among siliceous and wliite calcareous stones, Sept 14 1811 

 Burchell, 1630-2. 



As I am preparing a monograph of the gi'oup to which this species belongs 

 and will there give a full account and figure of it, I merely include it here 

 to make complete the enumeration of the species described from Burchell's 



collection. 



For, as I write, the news comes to hand that this species, which 



r over one 



has remained quite unkuown to botanist and gardener alike fu 



hundred years since Burchell found it, has now been re-found in the same 



locality where Burchell discovered it. Burchell did not introduce it into 



cultivation, and, according to his catalogue, only collected two dried sjieci- 



mens of it, but as their number has been crossed out by Burchell himself 



and there were no specimens of it in his Herbarium when it came to Kew, 



they were probably lost or destroyed by insects. Ha worth's description 



(translated above) was prepared from a drawing that Burchell made in 



South Africa. He made a large number of such drawings, but they appear 



to have disappeared, as I have quite failed to discover what became of 

 them. 



