PLATE 204. 



UEGINEA LILACINA, Baker (Fl. Cap., Vol. vi. p. 469). 

 Natural Order, 



A bulbous plant found in damp or marshy ground. Bulb ovoid, f to 1^ inch 

 diameter, tunics white. Leaves app?aring after the flowers, cylindrical, tapering 

 to an acute point, usually a little shorter than the peduncles, dark green, glabrous, 

 and shining. Peduncles cylindrical, tapering very gradually from base to apex, 

 3 to 4 feet long, dark green, glabrous and shining. Raceme 4 to 8 inches long, 

 1 inch diameter, laxly many flowered, pedicels ascending, -g- to f inch long. 

 Bracts deciduous, lowest ones spurred, erect, oblong, acute, margins strongly 

 infolded, about 2 lines long, spur linear-acute, very strongly reflexed, reaching to 

 1^ inch long; upper ones small, membranou-*, oblong, margins strongly infolded. 

 Flowers fragrant, lilac, or pinkish when dried. Perianth campanulate y inch long, 

 cucullate at apex, segments 6, free nearly to base, oblanceolate, inner lobes 

 narrowest, all with a dark central band on the upper half, which is most conspi- 

 cuous on the outer surface, the inner surface white or pinky white. Stamens 

 shorter than the perianth, erect, filaments flattened, white. Antners oblong, small, 

 dark coloured. Ovary ovoid, green, 3-celled. Capsule globose-triquetrous, locu- 

 licidally 3-valved. 



Habitat: NATAL: In boggry ground, Inanda, 1,500 feet Alt, Wood 198; 642; 

 Colonel Bowker, Northdene, Wood 3138. Eisdumbini, 1,800 feet, May, Wood 

 Clairmont, 50 feet alt, September, Wood 7644. 



Drawn and described from the Clairmont specimens. 



This plant is not unworthy of cultivation, but it requires plenty of moisture, 

 and is always found in very moist or boggy ground. The native name is u-Jobo, 

 and they use the bulbs as a vermifuge. In the Flora Capensis where this plant is 

 described it is stated that the bracts are not spurred, but this is a mistake, they 

 are very early deciduous and probably the specimens sent to Kew had lost then- 

 lower bracts, still in the Key to the genus it is included in the section having 

 the " basal spur of lower bracts large, subulate ; " these bracts are well shown in 

 the figure. 



Fig. 1, flower; 2, section of same ; 3, petal with attached stamen; 4, stamen; 

 5, section of ovary ; 6, lower bract, front and side view ; 7, upper bract ; upper 

 and side view ; all enlarged. 



