13 



HELICHRYSUM RETORTOIDES, N. E. Brown. 



Near H. retortum, Willd, but differs by its shorter, erect, 

 and crowded branches, narrower and more clustered leaves, 

 much smaller heads, and different indument. 



Plant 2§-4 inches high. Branches erect, crowded, simple o r 

 sparingly branching above, woody, slender, densely leafy for 

 their whole length. Leaves 2f-4 lines long, J-l line wide, 

 linear-oblong, obtuse, clothed above with silvery compressed 

 indumentum, or sub-glabrous, densely white tomentose beneath. 

 Heads solitary, sessile f inch long, cylindrical. Involucral 

 scales in many series, glabrous, exterior ones ovate or lanceo- 

 late, subacute, red, interior ones longer, linear-lanceolate, 

 obtuse, white. Flowers yellow, one-third the length of the 

 involucre. Corolla 3J lines long, filiform-tubular, very shortly 

 5-tootbed, Ovary very minutely papillose. Pappus scales 

 shortly barbellate at apex. 



Habitat. — Natal, on the slopes of the Drakensberg 5,400- 

 6,300 feet. 



Wilson in Herb. Wood 8365. 



The publication of the last Part of Vol. V of " Natal 

 Plants " has been delayed waiting for the appearance in the 

 Kew Bulletin of a description of a new grass, a species of 

 Agrostis ; all the drawings for the Part are already made, and 

 when this description is published the volume will at once be 

 completed and put into the printer's hands, Vol. II and V 

 contain plates and descriptions of all the Natal grasses known 

 to us, Vol. I, III and IV being confined to miscellaneous 

 plants, and I regret to have to say that on the completion of 

 Vol. V, the publication of this work will for the present at any 

 rate cease, as under present circumstances the Government can 

 scarcely be expected to continue the Grant that has been 

 received in aid of its publication. 



The " Handbook to the Flora of Natal," for the use of 

 amateurs which has been for so long in hand has at last been 

 published, and may be obtained from the local Booksellers, 

 the whole cost has been borne by the Botanic Society, and it is 

 hoped that it will be found to be useful to others as well as to 

 students of botany, and serve to make the science more popular 

 than it' has hitherto been in Natal. 



A list of the indigenous plants of the Colony with more 

 precise information as to their localities, months of flowering 

 and collectors numbers has been prepared, and is now in course 

 of publication by the " South African Philosophical Society " 

 of Capetown, copies of which will be oblainable by the public 

 before the close of the present year. 



