16 



PLATE 239. 



DiPOADi viEiDB, Moench (Fl. Cap. Vol. vi., p. 449). 

 Natural Order, LiLUOEiB. 



A somewhat succulent bulbous herb. Bulb globose or ovoid, f-i inch 

 diameter. Leaves 2-6, linear, erect, fleshy, channelled, glabrous ; 6-15 inches 

 long, 2-5 lines wide and equitant at base. Peduncle erect, terete, glabrous, 

 10-24 inches long. Racemes very lax, 6-15 flowered, lower pedicels |— | inch 

 long. Flowers brownish green, nodding ; bracts ovate-oblong with a long cusp. 

 Perianth gamophyllous, tube oblong-cylindrical, segments 6, dimorphic, the three 

 outer ones longest, acuminate, cucullate, and thickened a little above the centre, 

 reflexed; the three inner ones connivent, the short free apices spreading, the 

 whole perianth -|-1 inch long. Stamens 6, included, inserted below throat of tube, 

 sub-biseriate ; filaments shorter than the anthers ; anthers linear-oblong, 2 celled, 

 dehiscing introrsely. Ovary superior, subsessile, 3-celled, ovules many in each 

 cell, superposed ; style cylindrical ; stigma truncate. Capsule bluntly 3-angled, 

 looulicidal, membranous, with transverse veins ; seeds 15-20 in each cell. 



Habitat : Natal : Inanda, 1 ,800 feet altitude. Wood No. 266 ; 38 1 ; near Mooi 

 River, 4-5,000 feet altitude, October, Wood No. 5623 ; Nottingham, Buchanan, No. 

 144; near Durban, 100 feet altitude^ December, Wood. 



Drawn and described from the Durban specimens. 



This genus, according to the Genera Plantarum, contains about 20 species in- 

 habiting Southern Europe, Africa, and India, but to this number many species 

 have been added since the publication of that work. In Harvey's Genera of South 

 African plants these species were included in the genus Uropetalum, but that 

 genus has since been merged in Dipcadi. 



In Yol. vi. of the Flora Capensis which was published in 1897, sixteen species 

 are described as South African, and of these five are said to have been identified in 

 Natal, the remainder being found in other parts of South Africa. In the Flora of 

 Tropical Africa, Vol. vii., 25 species are enumerated and described, only two of 

 which are natives of South Africa, the above described species being one of them 

 and D. Glarkeanum the other. The natives do not appear to have any distinctive 

 name for this plant, nor so far as we can learn do they use it in any way. 



Fig. 1, a flower; 2, perianth opened; 3, ovary, style and stigma ; all enla/rged. 



