. Tan, 5963, 
STAPELIA SORORIA, 
Native of the Cape of Good Hope. 
Nat. Ord. Ascteprapiex.—Tribe, SrareLien. 
Genus, Srapgiia, Linn. ; (Decaisne in DC. Prodr., vol. viii. p. 652). 
STAPELIA (Stapletonia) sororia ; caulibus erectis, ramis erectis v. divaricatis 
4-gonis inter angulos dentatos depressis, dentibus remotis acutis in- 
curvis, pedunculis solitariis v. binis ex ramulis junioribus provenien- 
tibus decurvis dein adscendentibus, corolla ampla atro-purpurea 5-fida 
fauce lobisque densissime et longe villosis, lobis acutis rugosis rugis 
basin versus luteis. 
STAPELIA sororia, Masson, Stap. Nov., p. 23, t. 39; Jacquim. Stap. Hort. 
Vind. Descript. t. 22, 36,37. Lodd. Bot. Cab. t. 94. Decaisne in 
DC. Prodr., vol. viii. p. 652. 
One of the earliest-known species of the curious genus to 
which it belongs, introduced into England by Masson, a col- 
lector for Kew, though it nowhere appears in the first or 
second editions of the Hortus Kewensis. Masson who first 
described it, in 1796, states that it flowered in his garden at 
the Cape of Good Hope in 1792, and in the Royal Gardens, 
Kew, in 1797. The said Francis Masson was a gardener at 
Kew, and was, at the instigation of Sir Joseph Banks, sent to 
the Cape, to collect live plants for the King (George Tit.) : 
he left England in 1772, and remained in South Africa till 
1775, when he returned on leave to England, and spent his 
vacation in publishing the beautiful drawings he had made 
of Stapelias in a small folio work, dedicated to the King, with 
figures and descriptions of forty-one species, all new to science, 
(there having been but two previously published from that 
country) and collected in the Karroo country chiefly by him- 
self. In 1786 he returned to the Cape, and spent ten _more 
years in collecting for Kew. Close upon ninety species of 
Stapelia are described in Decaisne’s monograph of the genus, 
APRIL Ist, 1872. 
