32 



Hnbital : NATAL: Coij.-mon. 



Drawn and described from specimens gathei-ed on Berea, January 1898. 



The genus Wahlmbergia includes upwards of 80 species, of which more than 

 half the number are natives of Tropical and South Africa. So far as is known to 

 us they have no useful properties, though the natives use a decoction of this plant 

 as an eye lotion. The native name of the plant is Schwaqa. 



The plants from which our description was taken are growing in fairly good 

 soil, and appear to be more luxuriant- than those from which the description in the 

 Flora Capensis was made. 



Fig. 1, Plant reduced; 2, Flower; 3, Calyx, style and stigma; 4, Ovary 

 with calyx lobes and petals removed, showing stamens} >, Section of ovary. 



PLATE 38. 



IPOMOEA AI,BTVENIA. Sweet. 

 Natural Order OONVOLVULAOFAB. 



4 climber with large white flowers. Stems wide climbing, terete, finely 

 pubescent, greyish. Leaves alternate, petiolate, exsdpuiate, broadly ovate, or 

 sub-rotund, entire, acute at apex, cordate at base, veins very prominent, upper 

 surface bullate; young ones having the vein and veinlets conspicuously prominent, 

 especially beneath, and covered with dense white tomentum; lamina almost glabrous, 

 the upper surface velvetty, and thickly covered with whitish tomentum; mature 

 ones green and glabrous, except for" a few tomeutos'j hairs on the veins and 

 veinleta, the fully matured ones 4-5 inches long, 6-7 inches wide, petiole 4~<> inches 

 long, channelled on upper side, finely pubescent. Flowers on short pedicels, solitary 

 in axils of upper leaves , Calyx 5 parted, lobes ovate from a broad base, einarginate, 

 Of thick texture, concave, the two outer ones enclosing the other three. |r inch long; 

 pedicel -J inch long ; Corolla salver shaped, o lobed, central portion of sab- 

 cylindrical, a little contracted at base, and gradually widening to apex ; 5 plaited, 

 plaits greenish white, margin wavy, texture of plaits thickish, of lamina delicate; 

 4 inches long, 3-^ wide ; Stamens 6, on base of corolla tube, unequal, filaments 

 tomentose at base only, meeting in centre and almost completely closing the orifice ; 

 anthers linear-oblong, 2 celled, cordate at base, attached at sinua ; Ovary on a 

 white swollen, indistinctly lobed disk, ovate, 4 celled, 4 seeded; style long and 

 slender, stigmas 2, globose, and again indistinctly 2 lobed. Fruit a capsule, seeds 

 covered with silky white hairs 



Habitat NATAL: Valley of the Upper Tugela, also in Zululand, 



Drawn and described from a plant in the Botanic Gardens, Durban, the seed 

 from which it wag prown having been brought from the Upper Tugela. 



This is the plant which is frequently spoken of as " Wild Cotton " and it has 

 been supposed that the cottony substance attached to the seeds might perhaps 

 have a commercial value, but this is quite unlikely ; the yield is very small as 

 compared with that of the Cotton plant, and the labour of picking would cost 

 more than the product would be worth. It is, however, a very ornamental plant, 

 and the large pure white flowers are very conspicuous ; the flowers are very like 

 those of the well known Ipomoea bona-nox, the " Moon-flower," but this plant 

 belongs to a different sub-genus. 



