PLATE 253. 



ATHEIXIA FONTANA, Macowan. (Jour. Linn. Soc. XVIII (1881) 391). 

 Natural Order, COMPOSITE. 



A slender, erect, herbaceous plant with white flowers. Stem slender, simple 

 or branched, leafy in lower portion, naked upwards, terete or striate, cobwebby in 

 upper portion, 6 to 14 inches high, 1 -headed. Leaves alternate, sessile, lowest ones 

 linear-lanceolate, becoming gradually smaller and more distant upwards, uppermost 

 bristle-like, margins of lower ones sharply and distantly toothed, recurved; of 

 upper ones entire ; apex acute ; densely white tomentose beneath, cobwebby and 

 finely hispid above, 3 lines to 3 inches long, the midvein prominent beneath, and 

 subglabrous. Heads many flowered, radiate, heterogamous, terminal on stems and 

 branches. Involucre turbinate, cobwebby, the bracts in many rows, subulate, 

 aquarrose, with dark brown midrib. Ray florets in a single row, female, their 

 corollas ligulate, 4- veined, 3-toothed at apex; disk florets perfect, tubular, 5- 

 toothed. Receptacle conical, pitted. Anthers tailed at base. Style arms truncate, 

 finely bristly. Achenes 2-3 ribbed. Pappus of 5 long, finely, serrate bristles, 

 .alternating with five short irregularly toothed scales. 



Habitat : NATAL : Upper districts, Lion's River district, 3-4,000 feet alt. /. 

 Wylic, (Wood No. 6712). Sevenfontein 3-4,000 feet alt., March, J. Wylie. (Wood 

 No. 8148). 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 8148. 



The genus Athrixia contains 15 to 20 or more species inhabiting tropical South 

 Africa, Madagascar, and Australia. In Natal we have seven species, the leaves of 

 one of which (A. phylicoides, D.C.) were used as tea in the early days of the 

 Colony; none of the species have any known economic value. The above described 

 plant is usually found in moist places in the upper districts, sometimes under light 

 shade, at sources of rivulets or in crevices of damp rocks, sometimes fully exposed 

 to the sun's rays for at least a portion of the day. It is not a very common plant. 



Fig. 1, ray floret ; 2, disk floret ; 3, anther ; 4, style and stigma ; 5, achene 

 with pappus ; 6, involucral scale ; all enlarged. 



