PLATE 597. 



ILYSANTHES NANA, Engler. (Fl. Cap. Vol. IV., Sect. IT., p. 365.) 

 Nat. Order, SCROPHULARI^CE^E. 



An erect herb, solitary or tufted, 1 to 4 inches high, roots many, fibrous. 

 Stems slender, quadrangular, minutely and densely glandularly pubescent, often 

 branched, the branches divaricately ascending. Leaves, the basal ones few, 

 rosulate, petiolate, the stem leaves opposite, sessile or subsessile, the basal entire 

 or subentire, obovate, tapering to base, ^ to ^ inch long, soon withering, the upper 

 ones in 2 to 8 pairs, ^ to ^ inch long, ovate or elliptical, tapering to base, variously 

 cut or toothed, occasionally subentire, sometimes purplish beneath. Flowers 

 axillary, shortly pedunculate, solitary 'in all our specimens). Calyx 5-lobed, lobes 

 deltoid, 1 to I f line long. Corolla 2 to 3 line* long, bilabiate, pinky-white. 

 Fertile stamens 2, included, filaments filiform, anthers 2-celled, cells divergent; 

 staminodes 2, gibbous at base, without anthers. Capsule oblong, acute, septicidal, 

 many seeded, seeds longitudinally ribbed, the ribs minutely tuberculate. 



Habitat : NATAL. In crevices of rocks and in masses of Seloginella rupestris. 

 Umzinyati Falls, Wood 1244; similar situations Tnanda, 1,500 ft. alt., Feb., Wood 

 1603; slopes of Drakensberg, 4,000 to 5,000 ft. alt, Jan., Wood 3914; Camperdown, 

 2,000 ft. alt., amongst rocks on banks of Umlazi River, Nov., Miss Franks; Umlazi, 

 Schlechter, 6734. 



Also in tropical Africa. 



The genus Ilysanthes includes only about 12 species, natives of America, 

 E. Indies, Tropical and South Africa, and Europe, four species have been credited 

 to Natal, two only of which are known to us, viz., /. riparia, Rafin, an insignificant 

 trailing plant usually found in very moist places, and /. nana, which is probably 

 one of the smallest of the species, and is usually found in crevices of rocks, or in 

 moist soil where it probably attains it largest size, since in the Flora Capensis il 

 said to reach 4 inches in height, but we have never seen it more than 2j inches, 

 It is of no economic value, and the natives do not appear to have any distinctive 

 name for it. The quotation in the Flora Capensis Wood 885 is an error. 



Fig. 1, flower; 2, calyx opened ; 3, corolla opened ; 4, pistil ; 5, cross section 

 of ovary ; 6, capsule ; 7, seed ; all enlarged, 



