23 



PLATE 221. 



BEEKHBTA LATIFOLIA, Wood & Evans (Journ. of Botany, Vol. xxxv., p. 351). 



Natural Order, COMPOSITE. 



A low growing herbaceous plant with yellow flowers. Flowering stem 1-2 

 feet high, racemoso-paniculate at apex, striate, densely hispid with short whitish 

 hairs. Lower leaves 12-14 inches long, 6-7 inches wide, ovate-oblong, narrowing 

 to base, acute at apex, shortly petiolate, margins crenate with large rounded 

 lobes ; intermediate ones smaller, narrow-oblong, decurrent on both sides of the 

 stem, subpinnatifid ; upper ones becoming rapidly smaller, margins of all ciliate 

 with stout spines from 2-3 lines long ; upper surfaces with a few minute adpressed 

 hairs, lower densely clothed with dull white cobwebby hairs. Heads few (3 in our 

 specimens). Pedicels erect, 2,^4- inches long, striate and hispid like the stem. 

 Involucral scales 100 or more in several series, concrete at base, spreading, linear- 

 subulate, with prominent midrib, margins with many unequal spines, 1-2 lines 

 long ; glabrous above, lower surface with many minute stalked glands. Ray 

 florets about 40, | 1 inch long, 6-8 striate, deeply bifid at apex and each lobe 

 again shortly bifid. Disk florets, very many, deeply 5-lobed, lobes linear, acute, 

 erect. Keceptacle oeeply honeycombed, the cells lacerate at apex, teeth often 

 long acuminate. Achenes glabrous. Pappus scales few, lacerate at apex. 



Habitat : NATAL : On the side of a grassy hill, summit of Drakensberg Moun- 

 tains, 5-6,000 feet alt. March, Wood No. 5960. 



Drawn and described from Wood's specimens. 



Only about half a dozen plants were seen, and but half of them in flower, and 

 the drawing has been made from a dried and somewhat imperfect specimen. The 

 natives do not appear to be able to distinguish it from several other species of 

 Berkheya, and it has not to our knowledge been collected in any other locality. 



The genus Berkheya, according to the Genera Plantarum, includes about 70 

 species, to which number several have been added since the publication of that 

 work. All are natives of South Africa, the only exception being one which has 

 found its way into Tropical Africa. The flower heads of the different species are 

 usually large, and always yellow, and the leaves and stems frequently spine-bear- 

 ing. None of the species have any economic value. 



Fig. 1, portion of involucre ; 2, portion of receptacle ; 3, ray floret ; 4, disk 

 floret ; 5, style and stigmas ; 6, pappus scales ; all enlarged. 



