PLATE 39V. 



MELASMA SESSILIFLOBUM, Hiern. (Fl. Cap., Vol. IV., p. 35). 

 Natural Order, SOROPHULARIACEJS. 



An erect herb, simple or loosely branched, 6 to 24 inches high, bearing 

 terminal racemes of yellow flowers. Stems and branches leafy, tetragonal, glan- 

 dular-hispid with white hairs. Leaves opposite and alternate, subsessile, broadly 

 ovate to lanceolate, acuminate, lower ones obtuse, upper ones acute, margins 

 coarsely and more or less acutely toothed or lobed for two thirds their length from 

 the base, the upper third quite entire, 5 to 7-veined, scabrid, to 1|- inch long, 3 

 to 13 lines broad. Inflorescence in terminal spikes or racemes, the flowers solitary 

 in the axils of the floral leaves which become gradually smaller upwards. Calyx 

 5-lobed, tube widely campanulate, lobes triangular, acuminate, sparsely ciliate ; 

 5-angled, tube 2^ lines long, lobes 3^ lines, bibracteate at base, bracts 2, linear, 

 occasionally broader and lacerate, a little shorter thin the calyx, ciliate. Corolla 

 one third longer than calyx, tube campanulate, longer than the lobes, limb bila- 

 biate, upper lip 2-lobed, erect or a little reflexed, lower 3-lobed, the lobes spread- 

 ing, entire, bifid or emarginate. Stamens 4, didynamous, filaments curved, 

 glabrous ; anthers 2-celled, mucronate and diverging at base, those of the longer 

 stamens largest, the highest of the pair having a minute tuft of hairs on the suture 

 about f from base, the whole of the cells dehiscing from base to J from apex. 

 Style longer than stamens, terete, very strongly recurved, oblong-lingulate, the 

 stigmatic portion compressed. Ovary, globose, quite glabrous, 2-celled, many 

 seeded. Capsule enclosed in the calyx, globose, many seeded ; seeds sublinear 

 with a very loose testa. 



Habitat : NATAL : Near Durban, Wood, 142, and numerous collectors. 

 Drawn and described from specimens gathered near Durban, January, 1906. 



A rather singular plant which is most probably parasitic on roots of other 

 plants. Though we have examined a large number of flowers we are quite unable 

 to find both bracts and bracteoles as stated in the Fl. Capensis, usually the calyx 

 is bibracteolate, and the bracts linear, but occasionally they are expanded and 

 lacerate, showing their close connection with the very numerous floral leaves, the 

 flowers also are not sessile, but shortly pedunculate. The corolla tube in its earlier 

 stages is quite entire at the base, but when fully expanded it is slit from the base 

 upwards possibly by the growth of the ovary, and it is bright yellow without 

 markings of any kind. The seeds are somewhat peculiar, the testa or outer 

 covering being exceedingly loose and hollow. The anthers dehisce from the base 

 upwards for about two-thirds of their length, and the upper cell of the longest 

 anther has a minute tuft of hairs about two thirds or more from base. This plant 

 has been known in Natal for many years as Alectra melampyroides (Sth.), but has 

 been lately removed to the genus Melasma. The drawings and dissections were 

 made from a large number of freshly gathered plants in full flower, not from dried 

 specimens. The plant is fairly common all over the Colony, and South Africa 

 generally. 



Fig. 1, a bud ; 2, calyx ; 3, base of mature corolla showing opening ; 4, same 

 opened showing insertion of stamens; 5, a stamen, front view; 6, same, back 

 view ; 7, pistil ; 8, cross section of ovary ; 9, capsule seen from above ; 10, seed ; 

 all enlarged. 



