15 



PLATE 238. 



ASPALATHUS LARICIFOMA, Berg. (Fl. Cap. Vol. ii., p. 120). 

 Natural Order, LEGCMINOSJ:. 



A many stemmed and much branched low undershrub, 10 to 18 inches high, 

 ms and branches densely pubescent, especially the younger ones, and with 

 dense tufts of white hairs at nodes, terete, unarmed. Leaves heath-like, in dense 

 tnfts, linear-subulate, mucronate, minutely and sparsely pilose with slender white 

 deciduous hairs, older glabrescent, 2-5 lines long. Flowers solitary, axillary, sub- 

 sessile, yellow, lateral, in upper portion of stem and branches, having the appear- 

 ance of a racemose inflorescence. Calyx gatnosepalous, tube campanulate, densely 

 woolly ; limb 5-cleft, teeth subulate, shorter or longer than the tube ; bract minute, 

 linear, f line lonir. Corolla papilionaceous; vexillum orbicular, emarginate, 

 pubescent outside, glabrous within, erect, shortly clawed, with two narrow ridges 

 aboves the claw, 5 lines long and wide; alge oblong, long clawed, ciliate on one 

 edge, cross ridged and wrinkled in lower half ; 4 lines long, 1^ line wide ; carina 

 incurved, long clawed, villous-pubescent on outer surface, 4 lines long, 2 lines 

 wide. Stamens 10, monadelphous, staminal tube split to base, anthers small, 

 oblong, similar. Ovary 2-ovuled, densely villous ; style subulate, stigma truncate, 

 minutely hairy. Legume obliquely lanceolate, sub-acute, densely villous, 1-2 

 seeded. 



Habitat : NATAL : From 1-3,000 feet above sea level. Inanda, 1,800 feet alt., 

 Wood No. 390 ; near Botha's 2,000 feet alt., November, Wood No. 7946. 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 7946. 



This genus includes about 150 species, all natives of South Africa, and of 

 these only four or five have been found in Natal, the remainder being natives of 

 Cape Colony. They are shrubs and undershrubs with usually heath-like leaves, 

 and the flowers are generally yellow, but occasionally red or white. The plant 

 here described has been distributed as A. sericantha, Meyer, and in Flora Capen- 

 sis, Vol 2, page 120, Meyer's A. sericantha is reduced to a variety of A. larici- 

 folia, the differences between type and variety being that in the variety the calyx 

 teeth are said to be nearly equalling the tube, and the carina villous. In the 

 specimens we have examined we find that the calyx teeth vary in length in 

 different flowers on the same plant, and the carina is always villous, but as in the 

 description of the type it is stated that the carina is " glabrous or villous " we fear 

 that the variety cannot be maintained. The plant does not appear to have any 

 useful properties and the natives have no distinctive name for it. 



Fig. 1, tuft of leaves; 2, a flower; 3, calyx opened; 4, vexillum ; 5, carina ; 

 6, ala ; 7, staminal tube ; 8, section of ovary, showing ovules, style and stigma ; 9, 

 legume ; all enlarged. 



