26 



PLATE 295. 



LORANTHUS QUINQUENERVITJS, Hochst. (Fl. Cap. Vol. 2, p. 578). 

 Natural Order, LORANTHACE^;. 



A parasitical shrub with scarlet and white flowers. Park ashen grey, green 

 in j^ounger portions, smooth and glabrous. Leaves alternate, petiolate, exstipulate, 

 glabrous, ovate to sub-rotund, coriaceous, veins immersed, but in the older 

 specimens plainly seen to be 3 to 5-veined at base, margins quite entire, often re- 

 curved at base ; 1 to 4 inches long, 1 to 2f inches wide. Inflorescence axillary, 

 or scattered on the branches, umbellate, umbels sessile, or subsessile, 2 to 5 or 

 more flowered, flowers pedicelled ; pedicels ^ to 1 line long. Calyx gamose- 

 palous, truncate, seated in an obliquely truncate cup-shaped bract. Corolla gamo- 

 petalous, inflated, and pinky white at base, then constricted and subcylindrical to 

 the obtuse apex, and a little swollen in the centre, lower part of the central por- 

 tion bright scarlet, then pinky white to where the stamens are inserted, then 

 another band of white, remainder scarlet ; splitting to the middle when opening 

 to 5 very narrow linear lobes. Stamens 5, on corolla lobes, one third down from 

 apex ; filaments slender, 2 to 2^ lines long ; anthers linear, basifixed, 1^-line long, 

 2-celled, in bud closely cohering round the style just below the stigma. Style 

 filiform, in the opened flower equalling the corolla lobes ; stigma globose. Ovary 

 inferior, 1 -celled, 1-seeded. Fruit not seen. 



Habitat : NATAL : Near Durban, 150 feet alt, April, Colonial Herbarium, Nos. 

 219 and 1653 ; also in same locality, Wood No. 8451. 



Drawn and described from Wood's No. 8451. 



One of the prettiest of the Natal species of Loranthus, it is not uncommon in 

 the coast districts, but whether it is found in oth-T parts of IS. Africa we have no 

 knowledge at present. The flowers are much more slender than in any other 

 species of the genus found in South Africa, and the markings of the corolla are 

 rather singular. The manner in which the species of Loranthus are fertilised by 

 birds is described in Natal Plants, Vol. 1, Plate 76 under L. Kraussianus, and the 

 berries are similarly used for making bird lime. 



Fig. 1, mature bud; 2, flower opened; 3, calyx and bract; all enlarged. 



