Stapelia. | ASCLEPIADE& (Brown). 941 
dull purple or purple-brown with a small ochreous or greenish patch 
at the apex; disk depressed at the centre and together with the 
basal half or rather more of the lobes thickly covered with very fine 
soft simple pure white hairs } in. or more long; lobes recurving, 
13-2 in. long, 1-1} in. broad, lanceolate, acute, ciliate with long 
simple white hairs, much stouter and longer than those on their 
face, part of them directed inwards ; outer corona-lobes ascending- 
spreading with recurving tips, about } in. long, linear, acuminate, 
concave down the face, dark purple-brown with paler (ochreous or 
whitish?) margins; inner corona-lobes ascending-spreading, dark 
purple-brown, perhaps slightly paler at the tips, with the dorsal 
wing 24-34 lin. long, adnate from }—3 of its length to the inner 
horn, with the free part scarcely 1 lin. broad at the base, thence 
tapering to an acute apex, entire or with a tooth on the inner 
margin; inner horn 5-6 lin. long, triquetrous-subulate, acute, rather 
straight and parallel with the dorsal margin of the wing below, 
slightly recurved at the apex. 
Coast REGION : cultivated in Grahamstown Botanic Garden, said to have been 
collected in Albany Div., Herb. Pillans, 198 ! 
Mr. Pillans writes: ‘‘In stem much like S. conformis and quite unlike 
S. flavirostris or S. desmetiana, One of the most singular Stapelias I have seen 
for colour. At a distance it looks as though it had been finely sprinkled with 
flour.”” The hairs on the disk and face of the lobes are much finer and softer than 
in S. desmetiana, var. apicalis, which it otherwise somewhat resembles when 
dried. 
6. S. desmetiana (N. E. Br. in Gard. Chron. 1889, vi. 684) ; 
stems 6-12 in. high, ?-1} in. square, with the angles much com- 
pressed and the teeth with erect rudimentary leaves 1 lin. long, 
green, conspicuously velvety-pubescent; flowers usually 3-10 
successively developed from a short stout peduncle near the base of 
the young stems ; pedicels usually 7-1 in. long, occasionally longer, 
2 lin. thick, velvety ; sepals 4~7 lin. long, lanceolate, acute, velvety ; 
corolla ovate, acuminate in bud, when expanded 44-64 in. in diam., 
pubescent on the back, transversely rugose on the inner face, with 
the disk and basal 4—3 of the lobes varying from very pale purple to 
dark purple-red, with numerous transverse pale yellowish (rarely 
olive-coloured) lines, rather broadest on the lobes, apical part of the 
lobes entirely dull purple to very dark purple, with the entire 
surface nearly or quite to the tips of the lobes covered with straight 
simple pale purple (or occasionally white) hairs 1-3} lin. long, all 
pointing towards the apex of the lobes, but are not adpressed ; lobes 
2-23 in. long, 1-1} in. broad, lanceolate, acuminate, flat, ciliate to 
the tips with long simple white or pale purple hairs, half of them 
directed inwards; outer corona-lobes ascending-spreading, slightly 
recurved at the tips, 3-5 lin. long, linear-oblong to slightly ovate- 
oblong or lanceolate, varying from acuminate or acute to very 
obtuse, with a minute apiculus or slightly 3-toothed at the apex, 
concave down the face, pale yellowish with a broad dull purple 
