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SOME NEW OE LITTLE KNOWN SOUTH AFEICAN 
SUCCULENTS. Part V. 
By E. Marloth, Ph.D., M.A., F.E.S.S.Af. 
(Eead August 21, 1912.) 
(Plate VIII.) 
Among the plants dealt with in the present paper are a few of special 
interest. 
Crassula teres belongs to the small subgenus Pyramidella, of which 
0. pyramidalis is known to most visitors of the karoo. Like this and 
the allied C. columnaris, it possesses a fringe of hairs on its leaves which 
are capable of absorbing dew or rain-water. 
Of the new species of Euphorbia one deserves special mention, viz., 
E. ferox. This forms rounded lumps about a foot in diameter, coloured 
brown like the soil of the karoo and provided with a formidable armament 
of stout spines. The colonial name "voetangel" is very appropriate, for 
if a barefooted person should happen to step on such a plant he would 
certainly not run any further. 
Another interesting plant mentioned is Aloe purpurascens. This 
species, so far known only from cultivated plants, is considered by 
several authors to be merely a variety of Aloe succotrina, an error which is 
due to the want of information we possess about these plants. Up to 
a few years ago the habitat of neither species was known, and it was even 
thought that A. succotrina came from the island of Socotra and supplied 
the drug of that island. In fact, in one of the most modern handbooks, 
viz., Strasburger's, the species is still figured as the source of the drug. 
When a few years ago^. succotrina was found by us on a field of boulders 
at the foot of the eastern cliffs of Table Mountain, about 1,000 feet 
above Newlands, the locality of A. purpurascens remained still unknown. 
However, plants gathered near the mouth of the Klein Eiver have now 
flowered in my garden and show very distinct differences in flowers 
and leaves from A. succotrina ; hence the uncertainty about the origin and 
specific difference of these two species is now removed. 
