PLATE 362. 
GyMNovENT2IA PILIFERA, N. E. Brown (Kew Bulletin, 1895, p. 26.) 
Natural Order, Compositx. 
A small shrub with yellow flowers, | to 3 feet high, sparingly branched at 
base or simple. Stem and branches subterete or somewhat angular, erect, rough 
with the clasping bases of fallen leaves, younger portions pilose, older glabrous. 
Leaves opposite, exstipulate, crowded on the stem and branchlets, which are $ to 1 
inch long; bilobed to the middle, lobes linear, subterete, one or both forked, 
pilose with long white hairs at base ; 5 to 7 lines long, } line wide. Infloresence 
corymbose, the corymbs few headed on short branches or terminal. Heads 
discoid, monogamous, shortly pedicelled, 2} to 3% lines diameter. Involucre 
hemispherical, of many lanceolate acute scales in three series, the scales brown 
margined, 1 line long, the upper ones ciliate ; receptacle convex, naked. Pappus 
none. Corolla longer than the involucral scales, tube cylindrical, minutely glan- 
dular externally, suddenly widening in upper portion; limb 5-lobed, lobes short, 
subacute. Anthers bilobed at base. Style arms flattened, channelled in upper 
portion, truncate, young achenes terete, 10-ribbed, puberulous, ripe achenes not 
seen. 
Habitat: Natau: On the Drakensberg, near Bushman’s River, 6,000 to 7,000 
feet alt., July, Hvans 51. 
Drawn from Evans’s specimen. 
Mr. Brown says in a note: “This differs from G. bifurcata, Benth and Hook, 
by its much shorter and racemosely decussate flowering branchlets, the lobes of 
the leaves being frequently forked, the long white silky hairs which laxly clothe 
the young shoots and leaves, the much shorter pedicels, more acute bracts of the 
involucre, and the corolla has a longer and more slender tube, and is much more 
abruptly dilated in the upper part than in G. bifurcata.” 
The genus Gymnopentzia contains these two species only, both natives of 
South Africa, G. bifureata having been found on “damp rocks to the west of 
Mount Boschberg,” and upon this species the gentis was founded by Bentham and 
Hooker, and was figured and described in Icones Plantarum Plate 1,155, and in a 
note it is said: ‘“‘ This plant is nearly allied to the genus Pentzia but the opposite 
leaves almost exceptional in the Tribe, and the achenes showing at least in the 
unripe state 12 to 15 prominent ribs instead of 5 angles induced me to establish 
it as a distinct genus. The forked leaves are also peculiar.”’ 
Fig. 1, involucre; 2, an involucral scale; 3, a floret; 4, two stamens; 5, 
style and stigma; 6, a leaf; all enlarged. 
