24 



PLATE 222. 



STOBCEA ECHINACEA, Harv. (Fl. Cap. Vol. 3, p. 495.) 

 Natural Order, COMPOSITE. 



An erect herbaceous plant with yellow flowers. Rootstock woody, root fibres 

 often thickened, or almost tuberous. Stems 1-3 headed, clothed throughout with 

 decurrent stem wings. Root leaves few, 5-9, linear-oblong to oblong-ovate, entire, 

 acute, margins ciliate with slender bristles which are 1-2 lines long, and ^-1 line 

 apart ; upper surface densely clothed with similar bristles springing from a 

 gland-like base ; under surface destitute of bristles, subglabrous, but having a few 

 scattered jointed hairs on the midrib. Stem leaves closely set to apex of stem, 

 sessile, decurrent in long sinuous, spinous stem wings, linear-lanceolate, bristly 

 like the root leaves, and like them tipped with a long bristle, lowest in our 

 specimens 1^2 inches long, becoming gradually smaller upwards, uppermost j 

 inch long, linear. Heads radiate. Involucral scales concrete at base in 2-3 rows, 

 shorter than the ray florets, linear, the outer rows margined with 4-7 simple or 

 binate spines on each side springing from a swollen base and tipped with a longer 

 and similar spine, inner ones without, or with minute spines only. Receptacle 

 honeycombed, cleft at apex into bristles of varying length. Ray florets unilabiate, 

 neuter, 8-10 lines long ; disk florets perfect, deeply 5-cleft, the lobes linear, 

 thickened at apex. Stamens 5. Achenes silky. Pappus scales oblong, biseriate, 

 irregularly toothed. 



Habitat : NATAL : Dry plains Province of Zululand Gerrard fy McKen No. 1045 ; 

 near Charlestown 5-6,000 feet alt, January, Wood No. 5240 ; Stony hill, near 

 Newcastle, 3-4,000 feet alt, January, Wood No. 6228 ; Stony hill, near Brakwaal, 

 5-6,000 feet alt, December, Wood. 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 6228. 



This plant is fairly common from Newcastle to the Drakensberg, usually in 

 stony ground, and it comes very near to 8. Gerrardi, Harv. The lower leaves, 

 which only differ from the stem leaves in size are not alluded to in the Flora 

 Capensis, but are present in the specimens in the Government Herbarium. The 

 thickened roots are not noticed, and further notes on this feature would be inte- 

 resting. I know of no use to which the plant is applied, and the natives do not 

 appear to have a distinctive name for it. 



The genus Stoboea has now been united with Berkheya, from which genus it 

 only differs by the bluntish, not acuminate pappus scales, biit so far as we are 

 aware no monograph of the genus has yet been written, I therefore retain the 

 name given in the Flora Capensis. 



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

 floret ; 5, pappus scale ; all enlarged. 



