1 72 BALANOPHORACKAE 



Ekebergia capensis (Meiiaceae). The sexes are different in appearance, and Miss 

 Alice Pegler at Kentani, who lias devoted much time to the study of the 



plants in her neighbourhood, informs us that one often rinds only one sex 

 represented within a considerable area. Both kinds ot flowers emit a strong 

 smell of decaying meat and are visited by small flies. 



The thallus grows to a considerable size, resembling a large tuber, 

 sometimes more than six inches in diameter; when fully developed it produces 

 the flowering shoot or shoots, the male plants being more branched than the 

 others (see Plate 42, A). The colour of both is a very dark red, resembling, 

 especially in the female plant, that of dry flesh. 



As with various other parasites, t.g. I isciwi, there is a considerable reduction 

 in the development of the ovary, the tissues corresponding to the ovary, ovule 

 and embryo-sac passing imperceptibly into each other. In sections taken 

 directly from the living plant no dividing lines are visible, and it is only by 

 a slightly different transparency that one can recognise the tissues corresponding 

 to these oro-ans. 



Fam. 13. Aristolochiaceae. 



This family is represented in Africa by the widely 

 spread genus Aristolochia, which includes herbs as well as 

 climbing shrubs, but all the African species possess the 

 latter habit. 



Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic; perianth simple, 

 corolloid, gamophyllous, often tubular. Stamens 6, 

 connate with the style, the anthers extrorse. Ovary 

 inferior, 6-celled, with numerous ovules in each cell ; 

 style short and stout, the stigma 6-lobed. Fruit a capsule; 

 seeds albuminous. 



The only genus. 



Aristol6chia /.. 



Numerous species in America and Asia, a few in 

 Europe, and about 40 in Africa, one of them, A. Peterstana, 



coming within our limits in the Northern Transvaal*. 



* Collected by Haines (Flor. Trop. Afr. Vol. vi, sect. i). 



