the latter, however, may be reckoned the curious Stapelia 

 Gordoniof Masson, (Scytanthus Gordoni, Hook. 1c. Plant, 

 tab. 625) which were detected by Mr. Burke on the Orange 

 River, and -other places in South Africa, and sent to his 

 employer, the Earl of Derby, at Knowsley, together with 

 the subject of the present plate, lately received among a 

 collection of plants from Little Namaqua-land, from Mr. 

 Zeyher. It flowered in the Royal Botanic Gardens of 

 Kew, in August, 1844. 



Descr. The stem, or, in other words, the entire plant, 

 has more the appearance of a Mammillaria (among 

 Cactaceje), or some succulent South African Euphorbia, 

 than of a Stapelia, and is obovato-cylindrical, in the 

 present instance about five inches and a-half high, and two 

 inches broad, of a glaucous-green color, externally even 

 mammillate ; mammilla, in the lower and older part of the 

 stem transversal, oblong ; above, in the younger portion, 

 nearly rotundate and smaller, somewhat angular, as it were, 

 by pressure : all of them prominent and furnished with a 

 small central depression. Flowers small, aggregate on the 

 summit of the stem, nearly sessile, with transverse, red 

 bands and spots. Calyx deeply five-toothed. Corolla 

 nearly rotate, but approaching to campanulate, minutely 

 puckered on the surface; the five segments triangular, acute, 

 spreading. The general form of the flower and the 

 structure of the staminal crown in many respects approach 

 those of Podanthes : but there are differences, and the 

 habit of the plant is quite at variance with that section or 

 subgenus of Stapelia. The exterior staminal corona has 

 five principal divisions, with a short intervening tooth ; and 

 each principal division is forked, or deeply cleft, with the 

 segments spreading : the horns, or segments of the interior, 

 are linear-oblong, rather short, and incurved upon the 

 gynostegium. 



Fig. 1. Flower. 2. Staminal Crown -.—magnified. 



