PLATE 316. 



PLECTRANTHUS TOMENTOSUS, Bth. (ex. E. M. Comm. PI. Afr. Austr. 229). 



Natural Order, LABIATAE. 



An undershrub, reaching to 4 or 5 feet in height, much branched, leafy in the 

 younger portions only. Stem and branches tetragonous, and deeply furrowed, 

 densely tomentose, and thickly covered with sessil? or subsessile globose amber 

 coloured glands ; upper portion dark purplish. Leaves opposite, petiolate, exsti- 

 pulate, densely and softly tomentose and glandular beneath, like the stem, veins 

 and veinlets very prominent on under surface, visible and sunk on upper surface, 

 which is less densely tomentose than the under one, and without glands ; cordate 

 at base, margins coarsely and regularly crenate, slightly recurved ; 2 to 3^ inches 

 long, 1^ to 2^ inches wide ; petiole ^ to f inch long, thick, and very deeply chan- 

 nelled above, tomentose and glandular. Inflorescence a racemose panicle, the 

 whorls 6 to 8 flowered. Calyx gamosepalous, 5-lobed, tube short, campanulate, 

 upper lobe broadly ovate or subrotund, remainder lanceolate, the whole calyx 1 to 

 1^- line long, pilose with jointed hairs, purple and with amber-coloured sessile or 

 subsessile globose glands. Corolla gamopetalous, tube strongly compressed, widen- 

 ing to throat, gibbous on upper side, limb 2-lipped, upper lip erect, 4-lobed, two 

 central lobes largest, rounded at apex, lateral lobes narrower and shorter, lower 

 lobe entire, declined, elongate, elliptical from a narrowed base, the whole corolla 

 5 lines long, lilac, the upper lip dark lined, lower concolorous, and with the upper 

 lip having a few dark glands on outer surface. Stamens 4, declinate, longer than 

 corolla, exserted. Filaments, toothless ; anthers 2-celled, at length confluent. 

 Style 1, filiform, longer than stamens, minutely 2-fid, teeth ovate. Disk expanded 

 on the lower side into a lobe which is longer than the ovary. Nuts minute. 



Habitat: NATAL: Coast and Midlands. Inanda 2,000 feet alt., May, Wood, 

 No 488 ; Botha's Hill, October, 2,500 feet alt., Wood, No. 4775 ; near Durban, 

 March, Wood. 



This is the second species of this genus figured in this work, the other being 

 P. saccatus, Plate 85, Vol. 1. The plant here described is not so handsome as P. 

 saccatus, but is well worth cultivation. It is ornamental only, and I cannot learn 

 that the natives have any distinctive name for it, nor that they use it in any way. 



Fig. 1, flower ; 2, calyx opened ; 3, corolla opened : 4, a stamen ; 5, style 

 and stigma ; 6, ovary and disk ; all enlarged. 



