PLATE 337 



BEIOSEMA SALIGNUM, E. Meyer. (Fl. Cap. Vol. II, p. 261.) 

 Natural Order, LEGDMINOS.E. 



A tall, slender plant growing in open grassy land. Stems one or more, 6 to 

 18 inches high, often branched at base, furrowed, covered with soft white silky 

 hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, stipulate, trifoliate, linear-lanceolate, acute, 

 rounded at base, margins quite entire, veins prominent beneath ; green and glabrous 

 above, densely clothed with white silky hairs beneath; 1^ to 4 inches long, 4 to 8 

 lines wide ; common petiole 2 to 3 lines long, secondary petioles shorter ; all silky 

 pubescent ; stipules linear-lanceolate ^ to f inch long, striate, brown, thinly pilose 

 with white hairs. Inflorescence racemose, racemes axillary and terminal, florifer- 

 ous beyond the middle, the flowers strongly deflexed. Peduncles 2 to 6 inches 

 long, pedicels very short. Calyx campanulate, 5-fid, lobes sub-equal, longer than 

 the tube, long acuminate, pilose and glandular externally, 2^ lines long. Corolla 

 papilionaceous ; vexillum, with inflexed auricles at base, strongly reflexed, thrice 

 longer than the calyx, pilose and glandular like the calyx, yellow on inner surface, 

 brownish red externally ; alae oblong, clawed, auricled at base, a little shorter than 

 the vexillum, yellow; carina oblong, broader and a little shorter than the vexillum, 

 yellow. Stamens 10, diadelphous, vexillary stamen free to base ; anthers similar. 

 Ovary sessile, densely pilose ; style filiform, strongly and abruptly curved in the 

 middle, and conspicuously thickened at the curve ; glabrous ; stigma minute, capi- 

 tate. Legumes deflexed, broadly oblong, oblique, subsessile, apiculate, compressed, 

 densely pilose, 2-seeded, seeds oblong, attached at the end of the linear hilum, 

 minutely spotted, 2^ lines long, 2 lines wide. 



Habitat: NATAL: Coast and midlands, common ; Inanda, 1800 feet alt, Wood, 

 No. 452 ; near Durban; January, Wood. 



A very common plant in coast and midland districts, and probably in the upper 

 district also; it is always found on grassy hills fully exposed to the sun's rays, and 

 though a slender plant with few and distant leaves, .their silvery under surface 

 renders the plant very conspicuous. Another species of this genus, Eriosema 

 parviflorum, E. Meyer was figured and described in this work, Vol. I, plate 91. 



Fig. 1 calyx opened; 2, vexillum; 3, carina ; 4, ala ; 5, staminal tube opened; 

 6, ovary, style and stigma ; 7, legumes ; 8, legume opened ; except fig. 7, all 

 enlarged. 



