PLVTE 374. 



LORANTHUS NATALITIUS, Meisn. (Fl. Gap. VoL II., p. 376). 

 Natural Order, LORANTHACESC. 



A much, branched parasitical plant bearing orange-yellow and white flowers. 

 Bark dark coloured, quite glabrous. Leaves scattered or occasionally sub-opposite, 

 very shortly petiolate, obloug-laiiceolate to obovate, obtuse and rounded at apex, 

 tapering to base, entire, glabrous, subglaucous, f to 1^ inch long, \ to 1 inch 

 wide, exstipulate. Pedicels 1 -flowered, in clusters of 3 to 5, at ends of the short 

 branchlets, up to 1 inch long ; bracts obliquely cup-shaped. Calyx obconic, 

 truncate, subeutire, 1 to 1^ line long, 1^ line wide. Corolla gamopetalous, tubular 

 tiibe subequal in diameter for the greater part of its length, but a little narrowed 

 at base, white ; 2|- to 2f inches long, 2 lines wide, white or pale yellow, internally 

 5-lined, the line rather prominent, red, and reaching for a part or the whole of the 

 length of the tube ; limb 5-lobed, lobes linear, 6 to 9 lines long, f to 1 line wide, 

 acute at apex, orange-yellow. Stamens 5, on corolla at base of the lobes, filaments 

 shorter than corolla lobes, scarlet in lower portion, orange-yellow upwards ; 

 anthers linear, 2-celled, basified, cohering round the stigma in bud. Style filiform, 

 a little thickened in upper portion ; stigma subglobose in outline, minutely 2-fid. 

 Ovary inferior, 1-celled. Seeds not seen. 



Habitat; NATAL: Near Durban, Krauss ; Gueinzius ; Sanderson; near Itafa- 

 masi, 1-2,000 feet alt., Wood, 748 ; Umlaas, December, Wood, 9,631. 



This is the largest flowered species of Loranthus that we have in Natal, and 

 is very conspicuous when in flower. Two other species have been figured and 

 described in this work, viz., L. Kraussianus, Meisn in Vol. I., p. 76, and L. quin- 

 quenervius in Vol. III., p. 295, in the note to the first named species reference was 

 made by my then colleague, Mr. M. S. Evans, to the manner in which these plants 

 are fertilised by " Sun-Birds " (Cinneris olivaceous), and also by the " Tinker-Bird " 

 (Btirbetnla puaiJla). The berries of all the species are used for making bird-lime. 

 L. natalitius is also figured and described in " Thesaurus Capensis " Plate XXX., 

 and Professor Harvey says, " Our figure, taken from a dried specimen, represents 

 the flowers as pendulous, and so they are described by Meisner ; but Mr. Sander- 

 son assures me that " when growing they stand erect, and as they are of a waxy 

 white, and tipped with yellow they resemble lighted candles, by which name they 

 are known to the children in Natal." It is quite correct that when growing the 

 flowers are erect, not pendulous. 



Fig. 1, calyx and bract ; 2, corolla opened ; 3, style and stigma ; all enlarged. 



