PLATE 232. 



ROYENA FALLENS, Thb. (Prod. PI. Cap. 80). 

 Natural Order, EBENACE^E. 



An erect much branched shrub, occasionally reaching to 1 5 feet in height. 

 Root black, hard, and tough. Bark of branches reddish-brown, densely silky- 

 pubescent, sometimes glabrescent. Leaves alternate, exstipulate, petiolate, obo- 

 v.ite or oblanceolate, entire, obtuse or submucronate at apex, tapering at base to a 

 short petiole, pubescent ; %-'2% inches long, ^-1 inch wide ; petiole 2- ! lines long. 

 Flowers yellow. Peduncles axillary, solitary, 1 -flowered, 4-5 lines long, bibracteate, 

 one bract a little below the calyx, the other above middle of pedicel, bracts linear, 

 2-3 lines long. Calyx 5-parted nearly to base, lobes acuminate, 1^-2 lines long, 

 silky, accrescent in fruit. Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed, 3-4 lines long, tube 

 short, green and inflated at base, yellow above, lobes oblong, acute, recurved, 

 twisted to the left. Stamens 10, at base of corolla tube in one row, erect, densely 

 pilose, filaments short, thickened and compressed. Anthers 2-celled, acute, 1 line 

 long, including the filament. Ovary pilose with white hairs Style 5-fid, hairy, 

 stigmas obtuse, glabrous. Fruit subglobose or ovoid, subtended by the accrescent 

 calyx lobes, pubescent or glabrescent. 



Habitat: NATAL: All over the Colony. Inanda, 1,800 feet alt, Wood No. 

 214; near Durban, 100 feet alt., September, Wood. Also in Cape Colony and 

 Tropical Africa. 



Drawn and described from the Durban specimens. 



Of this genus we have in Natal 5 or 6 species, one of which R. villosa is 

 figured and described in this work, Plate 201 . The above described species has 

 no useful properties so far as known to us, but its tough black roots have pro- 

 bably been the cause of more breakage to ploughs and gear than those of any 

 other plant we have. 



Fig. 1, flower; 2, calyx ; 3, corolla opened ; 4, anther back and front view ; 5, 

 ovary, style and stigma ; 6, cross section of ovary ; all enlarged. 



