PLATE 324. 



I 



LAGGERA ALATA. Sch, Bip. (Fl. Trop. Africa, Vol. III., p. 326). 

 Natural Order, COMPOSITAE. 



An nndershrub with pink flowers, glandular pubescent in all parts. Stem 

 erect, branched, terete, and winged like the branches, the wings leafy, entire, 

 veined. Leaves alternate, upper sessile, lowest petiolate; elliptical or oblong, 

 obtuse at apex, margins serrate, glandular pubescent above, more thickly so 

 beneath, the upper ones decurrent in two stem wings to the next lower node, thus 

 appearing as though the wing was continuous ; veins very prominent beneath ; the 

 largest leaves, of which there is one only at the base of each branch are 6 to 8 

 inches or more long, 2 to 3 inches wide, the upper ones very much smaller, oblong 

 to lanceolate, acute; becoming gradually smaller upwards. Inflorescence of large 

 elongated panicles, the branches of the panicle racemose, distant, few flowered, 

 spreading ; pedicels 1 to 2 inches long, bearing 1 to 4 minute bracts, and with a 

 depauperated leaf at base. Heads heterogamous, many flowered, y to f inch 

 diameter. Jnvolucral scales in many series, linear-acuminate, outer shortest, and 

 like the medial ones with squarrose tips ; dark green ; innermost ones erect, linear, 

 subhyaline, 1-nerved. Receptacle flat, naked, pappilose. Ray florets numerous, 

 filiform, minutely toothed at apex, pistillate ; disk florets many, perfect, their 

 corollas tubular, 5-fid. Anthers bi-dentate at base, the lobes adpressed to the fila- 

 ment. Pappus of numerous filiform bristles, which are minutely and very deeply 

 serrate. Achenes pilose, ripe ones not seen ; style arms of ray florets filiform, of 

 disk florets linear, obtuse, glandular. 



Habitat: NATAI, : Inanda, 1,800 feet alt., June, Wood, No. 569; near 

 Umzinyati, Mrs. Edwards ; near Durban, August, Wood, No. 9007. 



Drawn and described from Wood's 9007. 



The genus Laggera contains 10 species only, of which 3, including the one 

 here described, are common to Tropical Asia and Tropical and South Africa ; 4 

 are confined to Tropical Africa, 1 to Tropical Asia, and 2 to Abyssinia. The genus 

 is nearly related to Blumea, but the anthers are not tailed, while in Blumea they 

 are so. None of the species have miy economic value, and most of them are mere 

 weeds. This plant differs much in si/e, according to the situation in which it is 

 grown ; in open ground it is rarely more than 2 feet in height, and somewhat 

 robust in habit, while in good soil and slight shade it sometimes reaches to 6 feet 

 or even more, and its branches are slender and elongated. 



Fig. } , leaf and portion of stem ; 2, branch of inflorescence ; 3, flower head ; 

 4, inner involucral scale; 5, outer involucral scale; 6, ray floret; 7, disk floret; 

 8, lobe of corolla of disk floret ; 9, stamen ; 10, stigmas of disk floret ; 11, achene ; 

 1 2, portions of pappus bristle, highly magnified ; except Figs. 1 and 2 all enlarged. 



