82 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



others intent on botanical spoils, offers a veritable Eldorado to those 

 seeking to render horticulture a service by the introduction of novelties, 

 especially where annuals are concerned. Of these none merit intro- 

 duction more than the 'Namaqualand Daisy/ an annual which is 

 reputed to occur in considerable abundance in the vicinity of Klip- 

 fontein, Little ISI amaqualand, whose flower-heads exceed 4 inches 

 in diameter. Despite its reputed abundance, however, it appears to 

 be a rather local plant, for none of the botanical collectors seem to 

 have stumbled across it, and it is only through Miss Edith Foxwell, 

 who presented Kew with a dried specimen in May 1902; that I am 

 able to proffer a tentative description of this plant, an Arctotis, and 

 one unknown to science, and named A. mirahilis in view of its 

 extraordinary size, and therefore the horticultural possibilities of 

 the species. Unfortunately the specimen is devoid of leaves, but 

 on account of its floricultural value, and as an aid to its identifi- 

 cation, the following description is given : 



Peduncle stout, terete, longitudinally grooved and sparingly 

 puberulous between the grooves, bearing a solitary flower-head, 

 which when expanded is 4 J inches in diameter, the ray florets numbering 

 about 65, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse and entire at their tips, narrowing 

 gradually from the middle to the base, 3-4-nerved, the outer ij inch 

 long, and averaging J inch in breadth, probably white in the Uving 

 state, the inner shghtly shorter and marked at their bases by dark 

 violet inversely triangular apically 3-4-toothed blotches about y\ inch 

 long. * Eye ' circular, slightly convex, ij inch across, dark brown 

 or blackish. Innermost involucral scales oblong-spathulate, mem- 

 branous and whitish towards their tips, scarious and opaque basally, 

 J-f inch long, J-^ inch broad. 



