PLATE 398. 



POLYGALA OPPOSITIFOLIA, Linn. (Fl. Cap. Vol. I., p. 82). 

 Natural Order POLYGALE.E. 



A slender, sparingly branched undershrub bearing purple flowers in lax 

 terminal racemes. Stems several to many from a woody rootstock, terete or 

 obtusely angled, glabrous, green or tinged with pink, reaching to two or three feet 

 high. Leaves opposite, petiolate, exstipulate, ovate, acuminate and cuspidate, 

 rounded and cordate to subcordate at base, glabrous, green or subglaucous, ^ to 

 1^ inch long and wide ; petioles up to 1 line long ; the leaf pairs ^ to 2-| inches 

 apart. Inflorescence in few flowered racemes which are terminal on the stems 

 and short branches, the flowers bright purple, veiny. Bracts small, lanceolate, 

 purple, up to 1 line long; pedicels 6 to 7 lines long. Sepals 5, very unequal, 

 three exterior oblong-lanceolate, very small, the two lateral ones (alae) petaloid, 

 ovate, unequal sided, obtuse at apex, very unequal at base, purple, veiny, 8 lines 

 long, by 5 lines broad. Stamens 8, united in a slit tube, anthers erect, 1-celled, 

 opening widely at apex, and with a few hairs at base. Style thickened upwards, 

 and bent; stigma oblique. Capsule membranous, compressed, elliptical, 

 obcordate, 2-celled, dehiscing loculicidally at the edges, cells 1-seeded, seeds 

 pendulous. 



Habitat : NATAL : Coast and midlands. Gerrard Sf McKen, 809 ; Inanda Wood, 

 260 ; near Durban, Wood. 



One species only of this large genus has been figured in this work, viz., 

 P. Capillaris, E. M. in Vol. I., plate 83, that plant, however, being a slender plant 

 with small almost inconspicuous flowers. The plant now figured is an undershrub 

 reaching to two or three feet in height, and with much larger and handsomer 

 flowers. It is frequently cultivated in Europe, and is well worth a place in any 

 garden, but we have not seen it in cultivation in Natal. It is usually found on 

 grassy hills and plains exposed to the full heat of the sun. 



Fig. 1, calyx ; 2, corolla ; 3, staminal tube opened ; 4, a stamen ; 5, pistil ; 6, 

 longitudinal section of capsule ; 7, capsule ; except Jig. 7 all enlarged ; fig. 7 

 natural size. 



