3G0 



'' I found this parasitic plant in June, 1805, by tlie Orange 

 liivor at the ford which the Carana Hottentots call Pristkap.* It 

 g^rcw L^re and there on different species of Lycium, and also, but 

 less frequently, on the highest branches of Mimosa nilotiea 

 lAcacia horrida, Willd.]. Its root is woody and tuberous, always 

 much thicker than the branch on which it grows, and which it not 

 unfrequently surrounds, as our Vismim does. The branchlets aie 

 woody up to tho apex, with grej^ bark and white wood. The largest 

 plant had a length of a foot and a half. It was just beginning to 

 flower, bnt neyertheless on my return five weeks later not a trace of 

 fructification was to be found- The old flowers, however, were 

 split down longitudinally and bent back. Apart from the beauty 

 of its flowers and the strangeness of its structure, the whole growth 

 attracted ray attention all the more becanse it was, on account of 

 the cold season, almost the only plant in this region which I met 

 with in full flower/' 



The chief interest of the above account lies in the long period 

 during which the corolla of this species persists. Very little is 

 known about the duration of the corolla in the LorantJiaceae. The 

 petals of Viscuin nervosuin^ Thunb-, are persitent in fruit, t and 

 those of Lorantlnis tindulatus, E. Meyer, appear to remain on the 

 ovary for a considerable period after fertilisation has taken place, 

 judging frvom herbarium specimens, 



Acording to Lichtenstein,J Willdenow reduced Llclitensteinia^ 

 WendL, to Lormitluts ^ but the reduction was never published. 

 Chamisso and Schlcchtondal mention, however, that Lichten- 

 steinia oleae folia is represented in Willdenow' s herbarium under 

 the name Lorantlius Lichtcnsteinii, 



F. G. Dietrich reduced Lichtensteinia to Lormthus in 1818, and 

 re-named the species Loranthus speciosiisM In 1828 Chamisso and 

 Schlechtendal accepted the reduction, and proposed thg new com- 

 bination Loranthus olcaefolius, which preserves the original 

 specific name.§ They described a new species, Loranthus elegans, 

 which had been collected at Caledons-kluft by Mund. This was 

 said to resemble L. ofeaefolins in habit; it differed in the glabrous 

 corolla with spirally revolute lobes and the longer, linear anthers. 



In 1830 J. A. and J. H, Schultes proposed the new name 

 Loranthus Schlechtendalianas to replace L, elegans, Cham- & 

 Schlecht., on account of the latter being antedated by L. elegans y 

 Mart.f Two j^ears previously Anton Sprengel had founded a new 

 genus and species of Lohcliaceae, Moquinia rubra, on Zeyher's 

 n. 296 from TJitenhage. Moquinia was transferred to the Loran- 

 thaceae by Griesselich,** and M, rubra was reduced to Loranthus 

 SchlechtendaUanus by J, A. and J. H. Schultes.1I 



*The spellino: Triskob is given by Lichtenstein, Travels in S- Afric 

 Engl, ed., p. 340 (1812). 



t Sprague in Dyer. FL Trop. Afr., vol. vi., sect. 1, p. 394 (1911). 



I Travels in S. Africa, p. 221 (1812), footnote. 

 Linnaea, vol. iii., p. 209 (1828). 



II Lexik. Gaertn. Nacbir., toI. iv., p. 473 (1818). 

 f Suhnltes, Syst. Yeg., vol vii., p. im^ (18;^0). 

 fTent. Suppl. Syst. Yeg., p. 9 (1828). 

 ** Linnaea, vol, v., p. 421 (1830). 



