20 



PLATE 268. 



VERNONIA ANISOCHAETOIDES, Sond. (Fl. Cap. Vol. 3, p. 49). 

 Natural Order, COMPOSITE. 



A half climbing much branched shrubby plant with straw coloured flowers. 

 Stems elongate, bark light coloured, striate or wrinkled ; branches striate, green, 

 finely pubescent between the ribs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, broadly or de- 

 pressed ovate, acute at apex, gradually tapering to the petiole at base, entire or 

 more commonly sharply, bluntly and irregularly incised in the upper portion ; 

 young ones finely pubescent, older glabrous, minutely glandular beneath ; 1^ to 3 

 inches long, 1 to 3^ inches wide ; petioles very short, recurved, finely woolly 

 pubescent. Inflorescence terminal on the branches, paniculate, the panicles 

 spreading, the branches divaricate ; minutely scurfy. Heads about 1 6-flowered, 

 homogamous. Receptacle honeycombed. Involucral scales in several rows, acute, 

 ciliate, calycled. Corolla deeply 5-fid, the lobes oblong, recurved, twice longer 

 than involucral scales. Pappus of many scabrous bristles of nearly equal length, 

 with a few shorter ones as an outer row. Achenes (unripe) glandular. 



Habitat: NATAL: Coast districts; near Durban, 150 feet alt., August, Wood 

 No. 8311. 



The genus Vernonia is a very large one including according to the Genera 

 Plantarum about 380 species, and no doubt many have been added to it since that 

 work was published. They are most plentiful in tropical countries, usually herbs, 

 but sometimes shrubby and of very diverse habit. The species here described has 

 no economic value and I am unable to learn whether or not the natives have any 

 distinctive name for it. 



Fig. 1, floret ; 2, section of flower head, florets removed ; 3 style and stigmas ; 

 4, achene with pappus ; 5, stamens ; all enlarged. 



