ADDISONIA 77 
(Plate 79) 
CRASSULA QUADRIFIDA 
Four-parted Crassula 
Native of the Cape of Good Hope 
Family CRASSULACEAE ORPINE Family 
Crassula quadrifida Baker, in Saund. Ref. Bot. pl. 298. 1871. 
This is a glabrous perennial with fleshy dotted leaves and ample 
clusters of white flowers tinged with red. stems are a foot or 
two high, fleshy. The leaves are entire, opposite, decussate and 
widely spreading, the upper surface an apple-green with numerous 
pustular dots, the lower surface paler; the lower leaves are two to 
three inches long, obtuse, sometimes notched at the apex, narrowed 
abruptly at the base into a flattened petiole which is shorter than 
the blade; the roundish uppermost leaves are smaller and sessile 
or nearly so. The inflorescence is a thyrse of numerous flowers, 
the branches ascending. ‘The flowers are about three eighths of an 
inch in diameter, the parts in fours; the calyx is small, the lobes 
short and deltoid; the corolla is of lanceolate and widely spreading 
acute petals a little less than a quarter of an inch long, white tinged 
with red, the color much darker in the bud. The stamens are a 
little shorter than the petals, as are also the carpels. 
This is a charming little plant for the cool greenhouse, responding 
readily to fair treatment and producing for a considerable period a 
wealth of star-like blossoms. The illustration was prepared from 
a plant which has been in the collections of the New York Botanical 
Garden since 1901, secured in an exchange with the Royal Gardens, 
Kew, England. 
The genus Crassula, confined to the Old World, comprises about 
two hundred known species, mainly of the southern part of Africa, 
with a few in its tropical parts, and scattered representatives in 
_ Abyssinia and the Himalayan region. The members of this genus 
are commonly perennial herbs or shrubs, few being annuals. Their 
flowers have the parts mostly in fives or more, the species here 
considered being unusual in having the parts in fours, from which 
circu ce is derived its specific name. 
esr . G#ORGE V. NASH. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. Fig. 1.—Flowering stem. Fig. 2.—Flower, X 2. 
Fig. 3.—Pistils, X 3. 
