PLATE 319. 



HIBISCUS PHYSALOIDES, Gruill & Per, (Fl. Cap., Vol. I., p. 172). 

 Natural Order, MALVACEAE. 



A tall herbaceous branching plant, bearing large showy flowers, which are 

 deep red at base, and yellow in upper portion. Stem 3 to 6 feet in height, much 

 branched above, terete, both stems and branches hispid, with short sub-stellate 

 white hairs, interspersed with longer simple ones which spring from a swollen base, 

 and are occasionally substellate. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, cordate at 

 base, 5-angleil or 5-lobed, the lobes acuminate or cuspidate, the interspaces crenate ; 

 very finely pubescent above, more densely so beneath, the lower ones 3^ to 

 4 inches long, 4 to 5 inches wide, the uppermost very small ; petiole 1 to 

 3 inches long, substellately hairy like the stem and branches. Flowers solitary, 

 axillary, pedunculate, forming a false raceme at the ends of the stem and branches. 

 Involucel of 10 filiform spreading leaflets, clothed with similar hairs to those of 

 the stem and branches. Calyx gamosepalous, 5-cleft to the middle, tube campa- 

 nulate, lobes deltoid, acute, 5-veined, the whole calyx f inch long, enlarging in 

 fruit, shaggy externally, pubescent within. Petals 5, more than twice as long as 

 the calyx, obovate, twisted in aestivation, veiny, yellow in upper portion, deep red 

 at base. Staminal column minutely 5-toothed at apex, bearing numerous stamens 

 on the outer surface ; dilated at base, covering the ovary and adnate to the petals. 

 Anthers 1 -celled. Ovary 5-celled, cells many ovuled. Capsule enclosed in the 

 persistent calyx, densely hispid; 5-celled, many seeded. Seeds glabrous. 



Habitat: NATAL: Coast and Midlands. Umzinyati, 1,000 feet alt., March, 

 Wood, No. 926 ; near Durban, April, Wood. 



A tall annual, frequently found about cultivated ground ; the flowers are rather 

 showy, but when the plant is in flower the upper branches are bare of leaves and 

 rather ragged, the hairs are somewhat unpleasant to the touch. A native also of 

 Tropical Africa ;md the Canary Islands. The natives do not appear to have any 

 specific name for it, nor is any part of the plant used so far as we are aware. 



Fig. 1 , base of calyx, staminal tube, anthers and stigmas ; 2, a stamen ; 3, 

 ovary, style and stigma ; 4, portion of involucre and calyx with ovary ; 5, cross- 

 section of ovary ; 6, ovule ; 7, stellate hairs ; 8, hairs from filament ; all enlarged. 



