Tas. 6782. 
ST REPTOCARPUS Kirxn. 
Native of Tropical Eastern Africa. 
Nat. Ord. GEsNERACEZ.—Tribe CYRTANDREZ. 
Genus StrEeprocarrvs, Lindl. ; (Clarke Monogr. Cyrtandr. p. 148.) 
StgErrocarrus Kirkii; pubescens, caule elongato erecto folioso robusto, foliis 
petiolatis oppositis ovato-cordatis obtusis subcrenatis supra pilosis, pedunculis 
eee. cymis laxifloris dichotomis, pedunculis pedicellisque gracilibus, - 
racteis parvis subulatis, calycis parvi lobis acutis, corolla tubuloso-campanu- 
latis incurva puberula, tubo }-poll. longo, lobis rotundatis ciliolatis, capsula 
pollicari gracile. 
A very elegant species, allied to S. caulescens, Vatke, of 
which it may be a variety, differing chiefly in the shorter 
leaves with rounder apices and the broader tube of the 
corolla. As I have seen only indifferent dried specimens of 
S. caulescens, and only cultivated ones of S. Kirkii, there is 
room for doubt as to the limits of variation in both. It 
belongs to a small section of the genus with leafy stems of 
which the species, five in number, inhabit. Eastern Africa 
and Madagascar; whilst their congeners, of which there 
are eleven, are nearly all natives of extratropical South 
Africa. Of the first group no species had hitherto been 
figured, whilst of the second and larger, there are in this 
work §. polyantha, tab. 4850, S. Saundersii, tab. 5251, 
S. Rewii, tab. 3005, and S. Gardent, tab. 4862. | 
‘S. Kirkii is a very elegant species, sent by our indefa- 
tigable correspondent, Sir John Kirk, from the hilly country 
of the coast opposite Zanzibar ;—at least so it may be 
assumed, for it came up in the earth surrounding the roots 
of some ferns in a Ward’s case sent by Sir John with plants 
from that coast, in which he had, with characteristic fore- 
sight, sowed seeds of plants of which he had no herbarium 
specimens worth sending. The seedlings arrived in 1882, 
and the plants flowered in March, 1884. Gladiolus Quar- 
tinianus (tab. 6739) came in the same case. 
OCTOBER lst, 1884. 
