PLATE 546. 



Gbrbbra natalensis, Sch. Bip. (in Flora XXVII, 1844, 778.) 

 Natural Order Composite. 



A stemless perennial herb, with radical leaves and cream coloured or wliite 

 flowers the rays often pink outside, on long 1-flvowered scapes. Rootstock 

 bearing elongated tubers 3 to 4 inches long, i in. thick in centre. Leaves radical, 

 petiolate, oblong, narrow-oblong to lanceolate, entire, clothed on both surfaces 

 with long white silky hairs, densely so when young; ciliate with similar hairs 

 from a tubercular base ; petiole ^ inch long, lamina 1 to 2^ inches long. Scape 

 pilose with white silky hairs, 3 to 6 inches long, 1-headed ; heads radiate, hetero- 

 gamous. Involucral scales in 2-3 rows, inner row longest, much shorter than 

 the ray florets ; linear, acuminate, finely pubescent on outer surface. Ray florets 

 in two rows, female, outer row elongate, bilabiate, upper lip minute, outer linear- 

 oblong ; florets of inner row much shorter, subtubular, bilabiate, outer lip longest, 

 minutely 3-fid, inner very short, bifid ; disk florets similar but outer lip larger, 

 male. Anthers tailed. Pappus copious, in two or more rows, of rough bristles. 

 Styles of marginal florets exserted, bifid ; of disk florets shorter, bifid. Aohenes 

 shortly beaked, those of the outer ray florets densely hispidulous, of the disk 

 sparsely or very sparsely so. 



Habitat : Natal : Inanda, 1800 ft. alt., February, Wood 203 ; Polela, 5000 ft. 

 alt., July, ]<Jvans 515; Sydenham, 400 to 600 ft. alt, August, Wood 11697. 



Of the genus Gerbera, two species have already been figured and described 

 in this work, O. Kraussii in Vol. I, plate 56, and G. aurantiaca in Vol. IV, plate 

 371. The plant here described is smaller than either, but not the smallest of the 

 Natal species, as 0. parva collected by Mr. M. S. Evans on the Drakensberg at 

 6000 to 7000 feet alt., is very much smaller than 0. natalensis, its leaves being 

 scarcely over ^ inch, in either length or breadth. 



The Gerberas are usually, perhaps always, found in open ground, and the 

 one here described is amongst the earliest of the flowers to appear in the Spring, 

 and often appears in abundance on hills from which the grass has been recently 

 burned off. 



Fig. 1 , outer ray floret ; 2, inner r^y floret ; 3, style of same ; 4, disk floret ; 

 5, three of the stamens ; 6, achene; all enlarged. 



