PLATE 567. 



GERANIUM ORNITHOPODUM, E. & Z. (Fl. Cap. Vol. 1, p. 258.) 

 Natural Order, GERANIACE^;. 



A suberect much branched undershrub, the branches slender, striate, densely 

 villous with white hairs. Leaves opposite, petiolate, stipulate, deeply and palm- 

 ately 5-lobed, the lobes irregularly cut into cuneate acute segments, dark green and 

 pubescent with white hairs on upper surface, pale and villous on veins and vein- 

 lets beneath, 1| to 2.V inches long and wide in general outline; petioles slender, 1^ 

 to 3-| inches long, villous ; stipules lacerate to base. Peduncles axillary and ter- 

 minal, two flowered Calyx of 5 sepals, which are oblong, mucronate, pilose with 

 gland-tipped hairs, 5-veined, 4 lines long, 1^ line wide. Stamens 10, perfect, sub- 

 equal, filaments subulate, hypogynous ; petals 5, hypogynous, imbricate, alternating 

 with 5 glands. Ovary 5-lobed, 5-celled, 5-beaked, pilose ; styles 5, stigmatose 

 longitudinally. Carpels 5, 1 ovuled, cohering round a beak-like tor us to which the 

 styles adhere. 



Habitat: NATAL. Inanda, 1,800ft. alt. April, Wood 85; Tweedie, 3,000 to 

 4,000 ft. alt., Wood 11035; Camperdown, 2,000 ft. alt., Miss Franks. Not uncom- 

 mon in the midlands. 



A slender shrublet, either prostrate or sub-erect and much branched. The 

 flowers are pink and rather pretty, but the plant is scarcely worth cultivation, and 

 is hot used in any way as far as known to us. 



Fig. 1 , calyx ; 2, a petal ; 3, stamens and pistil ; 4, pistil ; 5, same at maturity ; 

 6, cross section of ovary ; ali enlarged. 



