Plate 11. 



FBEESIA Spakrmannii var. flava. 



Cape Province. 



Ieidaceae. Tribe Ixieae. 

 Freesia, Klatt; Benth. et Hooh.f. Gen. Plant, vol. iii. p. 704. 



Freesia Sparrmannii, N.E. Br. var. flava, N.E. Br. 



Gladiolus Sparrmanni, Thurib. in Kongl. Vet. Acad. Handlingar, 1814, p. 189, 

 t. 9a, and Fl. Cap. ed Schultes, p. 49. 



According to the Flora Capensis the only species in the 

 genus Freesia is F. refracta, Klatt, which is a native of the 

 eastern districts of Albany, Bathurst, etc., and is characterised 

 by having (among other characters) the slender lower part of 

 the perianth-tube shorter than the upper broader part and not 

 more than twice as long as the bracts. But there are at least 

 three other species found in other regions that distinctly differ 

 in habit or in the tube of the flower or in both. One of them 

 collected by Burchell in Bechuanaland and at present unde- 

 scribed, has a very long tube. Another is a plant found in 

 the coast districts of Swellendam, Eiversdale, Ladismith, 

 etc., figured and described by Thunberg under the name of 

 Gladiolus Sparrmanni, upon which I found the species Freesia 

 Sparrmannii. The reference to this figure is omitted by 

 Schultes in his edition of Thunberg' s FL Cap., and is not 

 quoted by Baker, but it accurately agrees with the plant 

 Zeyher collected along the Buffeljagts Eiver in Swellendam 

 Division and distributed under No. 4027. It conspicuously 

 differs from F. refracta by the very much longer slender part 

 to the perianth tube, and although Thunberg's plant and that 

 collected by Zeyher have purplish-tinted flowers, I place the 

 plant here figured as a yellow variety of it, because I find that 

 the late P. MacOwan, in a letter preserved at Kew, gives the 

 following particulars concerning this species, which he also 

 considers distinct from F. refracta. He writes : " All along 

 the coast from Cape Point towards Agulhas, notably near 

 Mossel Bay, the other Freesia grows wild. I have never seen 



