THE SOUTH AFRICAN GERBERAS. 



237 



small range of certain species, such as G. asplenifolia, G. Wrightii, 

 and G. integraHs, is significant, and may serve partly to explain 

 their neglect culturally. Despite their claim to an extended culti- 

 vation, only two species have gained a hold on popular esteem — • 

 namely, G. aurantiaca {G. Elsae Hort.) and the Barberton Daisy 

 G. Jamesonii, and its varieties and hybrids. In Miller's time, three 

 of the South African species were in cultivation — namely, G. aspleni- 

 folia, G. Burmannii, and G. piloselloides ; but these evidently disappeared 

 subsequently, for neither Loudon nor Aiton allude to them, and they 

 appear to be entirely lost to cultivation now. The disappearance 

 of the last is not to be regretted, for it has Httle pretence to beauty. 

 The remarkable results following from the extended cultivation and 

 judicious hybridization of the Barberton Daisy suggest the trial of 

 others, of which the writer confidently recommends the introduction of 

 G. asplenifolia, G. integralis, G. Wrighfii, G. Burmannii, and the varieties 

 of G. aurantiaca. 



The following descriptions of the recognized species are based 

 upon material in the Kew Herbarium, and references to the synonyms 

 are included as well, besides collectors' numbers, which are, more- 

 over, usually indicative of the time of flowering of the respective 

 species in the wild state, and suggest incidentally the area of dis- 

 tribution of each as is at present known. 



Gerbera ASPLENIFOLIA, Sprcngcl, Syst. Veg. iii. 576 (1826) ; 

 De Candolle Prod. vii. 15 (1838) ; Harvey in Harv. & Sond. Fl. Cap. 

 iii. 520 (1865) ; Nicholson Diet. Gard. v. 389. 



Syn. Arnica Gerbera, Linn. Sp. PL 885 (1753) non Burmann ; 

 Thunberg, Fl. Cap. 669 (1823). 

 Doronicum asplenifolium, Lamarck Encyc. ii. 315, t. 679, 



f. 3 (1786). 



Gerbera coronopifolia, Sprengel, I.e. 



G. (Gerberia) Linnaei, Cassini in Diet. Sci. Nat. xviii. 460 

 (1820). 



G. coronopifolia, Cass. I.e. 461. 



G. Lagascae, Cass. I.e. 462 ? 



G. Gerbera, 0. Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 111. ii. 149. 



G. asplenifolia var. Buxbaumii, De Candolle, I.e. 

 Leaves tufted, six to twenty, borne on short sheathing ventrally 

 grooved white-tomentose or basally cobwebby petioles, rigid and erect, 

 rarely spreading or arcuate, linear-lanceolate, pinnatifid or pinnatisect, 

 3-8 inches long, J-f inch broad, terminated by a triangular or 

 sagittate lobe, thick, leathery, dark glossy green above (occasionally 

 a few scattered silken hairs on the midrib), closely white-felted 

 below, the lobes convex above, almost obliquely quadrate or rounded, 

 decreasing in size towards the leaf-base and -apex, deflected, with 

 their margins well recurved and often wavy. Scape soHtary or two 

 to three to a plant, 5-16 inches long, stout, terete, clothed with a 

 more or less thick close deciduous felt, invested with small appressed 



