PLATE 308. 
Dats coTiniFonia, Linn. (Sp. Pl. Ed. II. 536). 
Natural Order, THYMELIACEAE 
A shrub, or small tree, with dark brown tough bark. Leaves opposite, 
petiolate, exstipulate, ovate to oblong-ovate, margins entire, acute or obtuse at 
apex, tapering to base, dark green with conspicuous veins above, pale and with 
prominent veins beneath ; 13 to 3 inches long, 1 to 13 inch wide; petiole 3 lines 
long, channelled above. Flowers pink, in globose, terminal, long peduncled heads, 
surrounded by an involucre composed of + bracts, the two outer ones largest, very 
broadly depressed-ovate, two inner similar, but smaller; all coriaceous. Receptacie 
flat, pitted, margins of the pits bristly: Perianth tube cylindrical, gradually 
widening a little below the throat, 17 inch long, 4 line wide in centre, densely silky 
villous; limb 5-lobed, lobes narrow oblong, spreading ; > lines long, 1 to 13 line 
wide. Stamens 10, in two series, 5 in trea of tube, 5 a little below, all oxaertad: 
filaments filiform; anthers oblong, 2-celled, basifixed. Ovary superior, 1-celled, 
l-ovuled, very villous, seated in a membranous tubular or cup-shaped, and irregu- 
larly dentate disk. Style slender, shorter than stamens; stigma globose capitate, 
green, not reaching throat of perianth. Fruit dry, enclosed in base of the 
persistent perianth, pericarp membranous. 
Habitat: Natau: Midlands and upper districts. Liddesdale, 4,000 to 5,000 
feet alt., Wood. 
Drawn and described from a plant which flowered in the Botanic Gardens, 
November, 1902, Wood, No. 8699. 
This genus contains 7 species only, 3 of which are South African, 2 from 
Madagascar, and 2 whose habitat appears to be unknown; the above described 
species is the only one known to exist in Natal, and is also found near Rarberton. 
When in flower the plant is very handsome, and is found in cultivation in Europe, 
having been introduced from the Cape in 1776. The flowers are sweetly scented, 
and are appnrently dimorphic ; a figure of it appears in the ‘ Botanical Magazine,” 
Vol. V. p. 147, where the ale are shown long exserted ; and in one specimen in 
the Colonial Herbarium they are so, but in the specimen from which the drawing 
was made the stamens are long exserted, and the style is included, remaining 
within the perianth tube until the flower withers. ‘This plant has flowered in the 
Garden for several years, and produces seeds regularly. 
Fig. 1, flower; 2, upper portion of perianth opened showing insertion of 
stamens; 3, stamen; 4, ovary and disk; 5, style and stigma; 6, longitudinal 
section of fruit ; all enlarged. 
