PLATE 374, 
Lorantuus Natatitius, Meisn. (Fl. Cap. Vol. IL, p. 376). 
Natural Order, LoranTHacem. 
A much branched parasitical plant bearing orange-yellow and white flowers. 
Bark dark coloured, quite glabrous. Leaves scattered or occasionally sub-opposite, 
very shortly petiolate, oblong-lanceolate to obovate, obtuse and rounded at apex, 
tapering to base, entire, glabrous, subglaucous, # to 14 inch long, 4 to 1 inch 
wide, exstipulate. Pedicels 1-flowered, in clusters of 3 to 5, at ends of the short 
branchlets, up to 1 inch long; bracts obliquely cup-shaped. Calyx obconic, 
truncate, subentire, 1 to 14 line long, 14 line wide. Corolla gamopetalous, tubular 
tube subequal in diameter for the greater part of its length, but a little narrowed 
at base, white ; 24 to 2% inches long, 2 lines wide, white or pale yellow, internally 
5-lined, the line rather prominent, red, and reaching for a part or the whole of the 
length of the tube; limb 5-lobed, lobes linear, 6 to 9 lines long, ? to 1 line wide, 
acute at apex, orange-yellow. Stamens 5, on corolla at base of the lobes, filaments 
shorter than corolla lobes, scarlet in lower portion, orange-yellow upwards ; 
anthers linear, 2-celled, basified, cohering round the stigma in bud. Style filiform, 
a little thickened in upper portion ; stigma subglobose in outline, minutely 2-fid. 
Ovary inferior, l-celled. Seeds not seen. 
Habitat; Narat: Near Durban, Krauss ; Gueinzius; Sanderson; near Itafa- 
masi, 1-2,000 feet alt., Wood, 748 ; Umlaas, December, Wood, 9,631. 
This is the largest flowered species of Loranthus that we have in Natal, and 
is very conspicuous when in flower. Two other species have been figured and 
described in this work, viz., L. Kraussianus, Meisn in Vol. L., p. 76, and L. quin- 
quenermius in Vol. IIT., p. 295, in the note to the first named species reference was 
made by my then colleague, Mr. M. S. Evans, to the manner in which these plants 
are fertilised by “ Sun-Birds ” (Cinneris olivaceous), and also by the ‘‘ Tinker-Bird ” 
(Barbetula pusilla). The berries of all the species are used for making bird-lime. 
L. natalitius is also figured and described in “ Thesaurus Capensis”’ Plate XXX., 
and Professor Harvey says, “ Our figure, taken from a dried specimen, represents 
the flowers as pendulous, and so they are described by Meisner ; but Mr. Sander- 
son assures me that ‘““when growing they stand erect, and as they are of a waxy 
white, and tipped with yellow they resemble lighted candles, by which name they 
are known to the children in Natal.” It is quite correct that when growing the 
flowers are erect, not pendulous. : 
Fig. 1, calyx and bract ; 2, corolla opened; 3, style and stigma; all enlarged. 
