PLATE 355. 



CASSINIA PHYLIC.EFOLIA (D.C.) Wood. (Fl. Cap. Vol III. ; p. 204, sub. Rhyuea). 



Natural Order, COMPOSITAE. 



A branching uudershrub 2 to 3 feet high bearing yellow flowers, with white 

 tipped involucral scales. Stems and branches terete, canous, and with white 

 woolly pubescence. Leaves alternate, decurrent between the nodes as narrow stem 

 wings ; lanceolate, mucronate, entire, densely white tomentose beneath, green and 

 glabrous above, -^ to 1 inch long, 1^ to 4 lines wide. Inflorescence corymbose, 

 the corymbs few flowered. Heads many flowered, heterogamous, discoid. Recep- 

 tacle with linear, deciduous palae between the flowers. Involucre in several rows, 

 the scales imbricate, densely woolly in lower portion, the inner scales longest, 

 linear-oblong, creamy-white in upper portion, spreading. Florets from 15 to 25. 

 Disk florets most numerous, perfect ; marginal ones filiform, female, few. Pappus 

 in one row, bristle shaped, thickened at apex, scabrid. Anthers sagittate or 

 shortly tailed. Style branches truncate. Achenes " obovate-oblong, beakless," 

 minutely downy. 



Habitat: NATAL, Drege ; Plant; Ghtienzius ; Gerrard and McKen; Spring 

 Grange near Durban, ca 500-800 feet alt., April, Wood. (C. Herb 3528). Berea, 

 May, Wood. 



In the Flora Capensis this plant appears as Rhyuea phylicaefolia, DC, but 

 the genus Rhynea has now been included in Cassim'a, and its only species, the one 

 under notice, does not appear either in the Index Kewensis or in the supplement 

 to that work now under publication under Caasinia. I therefore retain the specific 

 name. With the sole exception of the plant here figured all the members of the 

 genus are natives of Australia and New Zealand, four only being found in the last 

 named country and 13 in Australia. The plant would appear at present only to 

 be known from Natal, but it is quite possible that it will be found also in some of 

 the adjoining Colonies. The native name of the plant is i-Thiela. 



Fig. 1, outer involucral scale ; 2, inner involucral scale; 3, female floret'; 4, 

 perfect floret ; 5, three stamens ; 0, upper portion of style Avith stigmas ; 7, 

 palea ; 8, pappus bristle ; oil enlarged. 



