PLATE 345. 



LOBELIA (Dobrowskia) STBLLAEIOIDES, Bth and Hook. (FL Cap. Vol. III., p. 550, 



Sub-Dobrowskia.) 

 Natural Order, CAMPANULAOEJE. 



A weak, scantily-branched plf.nt bearing yellow flowers. Stems slender, 

 angular, glabrous, decumbsnt, or ascending, sometimes branched, 1 to 2 feet long. 

 Leaves opposite, sessile, or very shortly petiolate, linear, margins scabrous with 

 curved, semitransparent, minute, white bristles ; distantly serrulate, the teeth often 

 curved, hardened, sharply pointed, whitish, 1 to 2 inches long, 1 to 1^ inches wide. 

 Flowers axillary and terminal, yellow, on long slender peduncles, which are 

 sparingly scabrous like the leaves, thickly so in upper portion, and which lengthen 

 in fruit to 2 inches or more. Calyx gamosepalous, 5-lobed, tube obconical, much 

 shorter than the lobes ; lobes linear, oblong, acute, 3 lines long, lengthening in fruit, 

 the whole calyx scabrous externally. Corolla 5-lobed, the two upper lobes distant 

 almost to ba-e, the three lower ones connate, forming a three-lobed lip, all the lobes 

 acute, the two free ones narrowed to base. Stamens 5, filaments and anthers con- 

 nate, all the anthers bearded at tip. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, many ovuled. 



Habitat : NATAL : Zululand, Cooper, No. 1137 ; J. Sanderson; Gerrard fy McKen, 

 No 1438; Inanda, 1800 feet alt, December, Wood. iVo. 727; near Sydenham, 300 

 feet alt, October, (Govt. Herb., No. 3769) ; N'goya,' Zululand, 1-2000 feet alt, May, 

 Wood, No 3860 (fl. yellow); N'goya, Zululand, 1-2000 feet alt, April, Wylie 

 (Wood, No. 9329) ; also in Kaffraria. 



The old genus Dobrowskia, to which the plant formerly belonged, has now been 

 merged in Lobelia. It included about 15 species, of which 5 were described in the 

 Fl. Capensis as South African, and of these, two at least have been found in Natal. 

 In the Fl. Capensis the flowers are said to be blue, and in the specimens collected 

 in Natal they are so, but in the Zululand specimens they are certainly yellow. A 

 specimen in the Govt. Herbarium collected at Pigg's Peak, Swaziland (Galpin, No. 

 1334), bears flowers which on Mr. Galpin's ticket are said to be " mauve." In 

 Natal and Zululand this plant is usually found in moist places. 



Fig. 1, calyx and ovary; 2, staminal tube opened; 3, style and stigma; 4, 

 cross section of ovary ; all enlarged. 



