48 



which perhaps accounts for its having been so long undesuribed, since it is not 

 uncommon near Durban. It was first described and figured from Wood's speci- 

 mens in the Icones Plantarum Plate 1713. 



When bruised the whole plant has a somewhat unpleasant scent. 



Fig. 1, Plant about natural size; 2, Involucral scale; 3, Pappus bristle; 4, 

 Outer floret : 5, Style of same ; 6, Disk floret ; 7, Style of same ; 8, Staminal tube 

 opened ; 9, Ray achene ; all enlarged. 



PLATE 58. 



HJ:MANTHUS NATALENSIS, Pappe. 

 Natural Order AMARYLLIDEJE. 



A bulbous plant, flowering in the early spring. Bulb globose, oblique, 2-3 

 inches in diameter ; scale leaves about 4, roundish to ovate, pale green, tipped and 

 spotted with red brown. Leafy stems spotted with red brown, 1-2 feel long; 

 leaves 8 or more, oblong, membranous, bright green, 1-2 feet long, narrowed to a 

 sheathing petiole, the lower tipped and spotted on the back, with red brown. 

 Peduncles produced from the axil of one of the scale leaves, compressed, sulcate ; 

 1-2 feet long, f -If inches thick, spotted especially near the base. Umbel very 

 densely many flowered, globose, 3-5 inches in diameter ; pedicels 1-2 inches long, 

 each flower subtended by a linear bracteole ; spathe valves 5-8, broadly ovate to 

 linear-oblong, obtuse, reddish brown, imbricated, at first ascending, afterwards 

 spreading at right angles from the stem ; 1^-4 inches long, ^-4 inches wide. 

 Perianth 1 inch or more long, pink, segments linear, more than twice as long as 

 the cylindrical tube, thickened and recurved at apex, the alternate ones with a 

 minute tuft of hairs under the tip, which is greenish white. Filaments 1 inch or 

 more long, pink; anthers yellow; style longer than the stamens, pink; stigma 

 minute, obtuse. Berry sub-globose, 3 lines in diameter, 1 -3 seeded, red when ripe. 



Habitat : NATAL : Common on the coast in open ground flowering in early 

 spring, in the midlands occasionally found in forests. 



Drawn and described from specimens gathered near Durban, August, 1898. 



The genus Ha3manthus or " Blood Flower " includes some 45 species, all but 

 3 of which are natives of Tropical and South Africa, and 11 or 1 2 of them are 

 found in Natal, from sea level to the ridge of the Drakensberg at 6,000 feet 

 altitude. The species above described has the reputation of being poisonous, but 

 is used medicinally by the natives, who know it as Idurnbe-ka-Hloile. The flowers 

 are usually precocious, but the leaves often attain nearly their full size before the 

 flowers are withered. 



Fig. 1, Leaf and head of flowers about natural size; 2, Flower, showing 

 bracteole ; 3, Section of base of flower and ovary ; 4, Stamen and lobe of corolla, 

 side view ; 5, Apex of corolla lobe, showing tuft of hairs ; all enlarged. 



PLATE 59. 



NUXIA TLORIBUNDA, Bentham. 

 Natural Order LOGANIACEJ;. 



A tree reaching to 40 or 50 feet in height, with a trunk 1-2 feet in diameter. 

 Twigs light brown, terete, glabrous. Leaves in whorls of 3, petiolate, exstipulate, 



