PLATE 313, 
Pavetra opovata, H. Meyer. (Fl. Cap. Vol. ITI. p. 20). 
Natural Order, Rupiacrar. 
A shrub, reaching to 10 to 12 feet in height, and bearing axillary and terminal 
corymbs of pure white flowers. Bark light-coloured, smooth and glabrous, twigs 
compressed at nodes. Leaves opposite, petiolate, stipulate, oblong to obovate, 
bright green, glabrous and shining above, pale and duller below, tapering gradually 
to the short petiole, obtuse at apex, margins quite entire, scrobiculate in axils of 
main veins beneath; 2 to 3 inches long, 1 to 14 inch wide, petiole | to 5 lines long. 
Inflorescence corymbose, dichotomously branching, pedicels 2 to 4 lines long; bracts 
small, deltoid, early deciduous. Calyx gamosepalous, | line long, glabrous, 4- 
toothed, teeth acute, as long as the tube. Corolla gamopetalous, white, tube 4 inch 
long, cylindrical, limb 4-lobed, lobes more than half as long as the tube, patently 
reflexed. Stamens 4, on corolla at throat, filaments very short; anthers, linear- 
elongate, sagittate, 2-celled. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, cells 1-ovuled; style long, 
much exserted, stigma clavate, entire or subentire, minutely hispid. Fruit as large 
as a pea, shining, crowned by the remains of the calyx lobes. 
Habitat : Navau: In Coast bush. 
Drawn and described from specimens gathered near Durban, February, 1903, 
Wood, No. 8704. 
The genus Pavetta includes 60 or more described species, of which 11 are 
South African and 27 in Tropical Africa, the remainder scattered in the Eastern 
Hemisphere, and it is quite probable that both in Natal and in Tropical Africa 
there are species not yet identified. Pavetta is said, in the “ Flora Capensis,” to 
be “the vernacular name of P. indica in Malabar.” All the Natal species have 
white flowers, and some of them are well worth cultivation. 
Fig. 1, corolla opened; 2, calyx and ovary; 3, stamen; 4, portion of style 
and stigma; 5, young fruit; 6, cross-section of ovary; all enlarged. 
