17 



PLATE 240. 



MENODORA AFRICANA, Hook (Ic. Plant, t. 586). 

 Natural Order, OLEACE.E. 



A small undershrub with yellow flowers. Stem woody, erect, reaching 4-6 

 inches high, much branched at or near apex, branches slender, finely pubescent or 

 glabrescent, leafy throughout, ribbed. Leaves scattered, multifid, heathlike, seg- 

 ments linear, 1-2 lines long. Flowers axillary and terminal, pedunculate, 

 peduncles 1 -4 lines long. Calyx gamosepalous, tube very short, campanulate, of 

 thin texture, finely pubescent; limb 10 lobed, lobes varying from simple and linear 

 to 2-3 fid with linear lobes ; the whole calyx about 3-4 lines long. Corolla gamo- 

 petalous, tube short, limb 5-lobed, spreading to f inch, lobes ovate-oblong, acute, 

 imbricate in bud. Stamens 2, on throat, exserted ; anthers linear-oblong, 2- 

 celled, dorsifixed, dehiscing laterally. Ovary free, 2-celled, ovules 2-4 in each 

 cell. Capsule didymous, papery, each carpel opening by a transverse slit, the 

 upper portion falling away. Seeds 1-2 in each cell, testa double, outer one 

 spongy, and forming a rib on inner face, cellular, inner membranous. 



Habitat : NATAL : Upper districts. Upper Tugela, 4-5,000 feet alt., January, 

 Wood No. 3550 ; near Ladysmith, 3-4,000 feet alt. November, Wood No. 7948. 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 7948. 



This genus includes about 1 7 species, the distribution of which is somewhat 

 peculiar. In a note to the description of M. helerophylla in Icones Plantarum 

 Plate 1459, Professor Oliver says : " The occurrence of this little genus in regions 

 so far apart as Mexico, the Andes of Mendoza, and South Africa is not new to 

 botanists, and now the interest of the case is heightened by Dr. Holub's discovery 

 of a second South African species actually conspecific with a North American 

 one." 



The species here figured is the only one as yet found in Natal. M. juncea, 

 Harv. is found in Cape Colony, and M. heterophylla in Transvaal. The plant 

 does not appear to have any economic value, and we are not able to ascertain 

 whether the natives have any name for it or not. It is strictly an up-country 

 plant, and has not so far been found at a lower altitude than that of Ladysmith so 

 far as known to us. 



Fig. 1, a flower; 2, calyx opened; 3, a stamen ; 4, ovary, style and stigma; 

 5, seed ; all enlarged. 



