PLATE 599. 



ASCLEPIAS CULTRIFORMIS, Harv. (Fl. Cap. Vol. IV., Sect. I., p. 698.) 



Nat. Order, ASCLEPIADE.E. 



Stems several, simple, erect or ascending, 6 to 1 2 inches in height, thinly 

 pilose with white cellular hairs. Leaves opposite, petiolate, ascending, linear- 

 oblong, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, quite entire, obtuse or acute, rounded or 

 sub-cordate at base, midrib prominent beneath, lateral veins pinnate, but indistinct ; 

 pilose on upper surface, scantily so beneath, and ciliate with similar but shorter 

 hairs like those on the stem ; 1 to 2 inches long, 3 to 7 lines broad, petiole 1^ line 

 long. Umbels terminal solitary, with 1 to 3 solitary from the uppermost nodes, 

 3 to 1 0-flowered ; peduncles \ to 1 inch long, pilose like the stem ; bracts linear- 

 subulate, 3 lines long, ciliate, dark brown. Calyx 5-parted, the lobes lanceolate, 

 acute, 2 to 4 lines long, hairy. Corolla 5-parted, the lobes dull purplish, ascending, 

 ovate, acute, thinly hairy on both surfaces, ciliate, 5 to 7 lines long, 4 to 6 lines 

 wide. Corona lobes 5, white with violet tips and a small violet spot on back near 

 the base, laterally compressed, cucullate, angles of the sides produced into long 

 subulate acute teeth, which are inflexed over the top of the staminal column. 

 Follicles not seen. 



Habitat : NATAL. Dargle, Fannin, 85 ; Howick, Mrs. Hutton ; Inanda, 1,800 ft. 

 alt., Wood 405 ; Sanderson 29! ; Zululand, Gerrard 1296; Camperdown, 2,000 ft. 

 alt., Miss Franks (Wood 11973.) Flowering December to March. 



Also in Transvaal, various collectors. 



Two other species of this genus have been described and figured in this work, 

 viz., Gomphocarpus physocarpus in Vol. III., p. 217, and Asdepias peltigera plate 

 559 of this volume. Up to the time of the revision of the Order Asclepiadeaa 

 the Flora Capensis these species with many others were included in a genus known 

 as Gomphocarpus, but as it was found that the genus could no longer be maintained 

 as distinct from the older genus Asclepias it was abolished, and its species 

 most part transferred to Asclepias, the remainder to Pachycarpus and Xysn 



A. cultriformis is not uncommon in Natal, and the absence of bright colour in 

 the flowers renders it more curious than beautiful, interesting to the botanist, but 

 neglected by the horticulturist, and it has no economic or medicinal vali 

 as at present known. 



side 



Fig 1, calyx; 2, corona and staminal column ; 3 coronal lobe; 4, same, one 

 removed; 5, anther; 6, pollen masses; 7, pistil; all enlarged. 



