PLATE 358. 



HIBISCUS SURATTENSIS, Linn (Fl. Cap. Vol I, p. 177). 

 Natural Order, MALVACEAE. 



A rambling plant with large showy flowers, which are light yellow with a 

 deep red velvety centre. Stems, branches, peduncles and petioles armed Avith 

 hooked tubercles, and reversedly pilose with long white hairs. Leaves varying 

 from deltoid-accuminate to 3-lobed, or 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate and coarsely 

 serrate in the larger ones, more finely HO in the smaller : hispid on both surfaces, 

 veins prominent beneath and those of the larger leaves armed with hooked tuber- 

 cles, petioles 1 to 3 inches or more long. Stipules broadly semi-cordate, clasping 

 the stem, their margins ciliate with long white hairs, otherwise glabrous : -| to f 

 inch long and wide. Flowers axillary, solitary, pedicels 1 to 2 inches long. 

 Involucre of 10 spathulate leaflets f> to 8 inches long, spreading horizontally, each 

 having on its iipper surface a subulate, erect appendage rising from the base of 

 the lamina, and ciliate with long white hairs ; persistent. Calyx 5-lobed ; lobes 

 deltoid-accuminate, connate nearly halfway from the base, tube 10-ribbed, midvein 

 and margins of lobes thickened, the whole external surface of the calyx clothed 

 with long, erect, white hairs, which spring from a tubercular deep-red base. 

 Corolla of 5 oblong petals which are connate at base, margin entire, veiny, spread- 

 ing to 2-^ to 3^ inches, yellow with large very dark red blotch in centre, its 

 margin irregular in outline. Stamiual column connate with petals at base, and 

 covering the ovary, 5-toothed at apex ; stamens many, on surface of the column ; 

 anthers 1-celled, staminal column and free portion of the filaments red and 

 clothed with mimite glands. Style projecting beyond apex of staminal column, 

 5-cleft at apex, its lobes reflexed. Stigmas capitate, pink ; ovary 5-celled, cells 

 many ovuled, covered with irritant hairs. Capsule 5-celled, enclosed in the per- 

 sistent calyx, loculicidal. 



Habitat: NATAL: Coast districts. Wood. 



A not uncommon weed in coast districts, the flowers are large and handsome, 

 biit the hooked prickles with which it is so plentifully supplied, make it an 

 unpleasant plant to handle. The leaflets of the involucre are very singular, and 

 the Flora Capensis says of them : " The curious form of involucral leaflets which 

 mark these two species (H. furcatus and H. surattensis) may be referred to what 

 is called " cleduplication " and its occurrence in Malvaceae, where the stamens (as 

 Dr. Gray has ably shown) are developed in a similar way, is not without signi- 

 ficance." 



Fig. 1, involucel and capsule, calyx removed ; 2, calyx opened ; 3, scale of 

 involucel ; 4, staminal column ; 5, stamen ; C, style and stigmas ; 7, cross section 

 of ovary ; except fig. 1 and 2, all enlarged. 



