PLATE 372 



SALAOIA ALTEENIFOLIA, Hochst. Fl. Cap. Vol. I. p. 230 (sub. S. Kraussii, Hochst). 



Natural Order, CELASTBINEJI. 



A slender glabrous undershrub, simple or branched, with yellow-green flowers. 

 Stems and branches terete, bark rough, dark coloured. Leaves alternate, sub- 

 sessile or very shortly, petiolate, oblong or broadly lanceolate, obtuse at base and 

 apex, margins quite entire or very indistinctly crenate ; coriaceous, indistinctly 

 penninerved, dark green ; 1 to 2-| inches long, 1 to 1 ^ inch wide ; stipules very 

 minute and soon deciduous ; petiole ^ to 1^ line long. Inflorescence axillary, the 

 pedicels clustered in the axils, 3- to ^ inch long ; buds globose. Calyx much 

 shorter than the petals, 4-lobed or parted, the lobes unequal, orbicular in outline, 

 concave, puberulous, green ; margins brown, membranous. Petals 4 to 7, imbri- 

 cate in aestivation, oblong, spreading, to 3 to 4 lines diameter, green, pubescent 

 externally. Stamens 3, hypogynous, inserted inside a thick fleshy annular, peri- 

 gynous disk ; filaments much flattened, tapering to apex, at length strongly 

 recurved ; anthers 2-celled, extrorse, dehiscing in bud. Ovary half immersed in 

 the disk, 3-celled, ovules 2 or more in each cell ; style very short ; stigma 3-lobed. 



Habitat . NATAL : Margins of woods, Krauss ; Pappe ; Gueinzius ; Inanda, 

 1,800 feet alt., Wood, 567; near Durban, 100 feet alt., Wood (Goverment 

 Herbarium, 3,565). 



In the Flora Capensis the genus Salacia appears under the Order Bippocra- 

 teaceae, but that Order is now united with Celastrineae; the genus contains 

 according to the Genera Plantarum 60 to 70 species, trees, shrubs and climbers, 

 and of these one only is found in South Africa, and 15 or more in tropical Africa. 

 S. alternifolia is described in the Flora Capensis as 8. Kraussi, Hochst, the other 

 species there described, 8. Zeyheri, Planch is now known as Eharrmus Zeyheri, 

 Spreng. 



Fig. 1, a flower ; 2, calyx ; 3, a petal ; 4, disk, stamens and pistil ; 5, a 

 stamen ; 6, pistil ; all enlarged. 



