PLATE 600. 



ADENIUM SWAZICUM, Stapf. (Flor. Cap. Vol. IV., Sect. I., p. 513.) 

 Nat. Order, APOCYNAOEJE. 



A low, branching undershrub with sub-glaucous leaves and rosy-pink flowers. 

 Stem and branches succulent, terete, rough with scars of fallen leaves, younger 

 portion green, glabrous. Leaves exstipulate, subsessile, oblanceolate, acute at 

 apex, gradually narrowed to the base, 3 to 4 inches long, J to 1 J inch broad, the 

 young ones minutely and softly white tomentose, the mature ones very minutely 

 puberulous, pale beneath, dark green and shining above, midrib prominent 

 beneath, lateral veins 12 to 16 pairs, not prominent. Flowers terminal on the 

 branches or axillary, usually solitary, occasionally two or more together ; pedicels 

 very short. Calyx 5 lines long, lanceolate-acuminate, minutely pubescent. 

 Corolla 5-lobed, the lobes twisted to the right, pink, darker at throat, broadly 

 rounded, 1 inch long and wide ; infra- stamina! part of the tube 4 lines long with 

 5 tomentose lines below the stamens, glabrous at the base; supra-staminal part 

 1 inch long, glabrous within ; anthers 3 lines long, hairy on the back, apical tails 

 3 to 5 lines long, densely villous. Follicles not seen. 



Habitat : SWAZILAND. Without precise locality, Mrs. Rathbone in Herb. Bolus 

 6208. NATAL. In Botanic Gardens, Durban, the plant brought from Lebombo Mts., 

 Zululand, by Mr. H. D. Jameson and presented to the gardens where it flowered in 

 January 1912. (In Herb. Wood 11974.) 



The genus Adenium according to the Flora Capensis includes "about 12 

 species, extending through Tropical Africa to Socotra, and Arabia." The generic 

 name is in reference to Aden, in which district one of the species, probably the 

 first described one was found. We have in South Africa in addition to A. Swazicum, 

 as follows : A. oleifolium, Stapf., from Transvaal and Bechuanaland, and 

 A. multiflorum, Klotzsch, from Zululand and Amatongaland. All of them are low 

 undershrubs with more or less succulent stems and branches, and conspicuous 

 brightly-coloured flowers, they are evidently long lived plants ; specimens of 

 A. multiflorum having been growing and flowering in the Durban Botanic Gardens 

 for more than 25 years, their stems are covered with lichens, giving the plants the 

 appearance of extreme old age, while the plants that we have are not more than 

 three feet in height. 



Fig. 1 , calyx ; 2 corolla tube, vertical section ; 3, stamen ; 4, pistil ; 5, 

 longitudinal section of carpel ; all enlarged, 



