PLATE 324. 
Lagqera alata. Sch. Bip. (Fl. Trop. Africa, Vol. III., p. 326). 
Natural Order, Compositae. 
All undei'shrub with pink flowers, glandular pubescent in all parts. Stem 
erect, branclied, terete, and winged like the branches, the wings leafy, entire, 
veined. Leaves alternate, upper sessile, lowest petiolate ; elliptical or oblong, 
obtuse at apex, margins set rate, glandular pubescent above, more thickly so 
beneath, the upper ones decurrent in two stem wings to the next lower node, thus 
appearing as though the wing was continuous ; veins very prominent beneath ; the 
largest leaves, of which there is one only at the base of each branch are 6 to 8 
inches or more long, 2 to 3 inches wide, the upper ones very much smaller, oblong 
to lanceolate, acute ; becoming gradually sm iller upwards. Inflorescence of large 
elongated panicles, the branches of the panicle racemose, distant, few flowered, 
spreading ; pedicels 1 to 2 inches lonijr, bearing 1 to 4 minute bracts, and with a 
depauperated leaf at base. Heads heterogamous, many flowered, ^ to f inch 
diameter. Jnvolucral scales in many series, linea^r-acuminate, outer shortest, and 
like the medial ones with squarrose tips ; dark green ; innermost ones erect, linear, 
subhyaline, 1-nerved. Receptacle flat, naked, pappilose. Ray florets numerous, 
filiform, minutely toothed at apex, piscillate ; disk florets many, perfect, their 
corollas tubular, b-tid. Anthers bi-deutate at base, the lobes adpressed to the fila- 
ment. Pappus of numerous filiform bristles, which are minutely and very deeply 
serrate. Achenes pilose, ripe ones not seen ; style arms of ray florets filiform, of 
disk florets linear, obtuse, glandular. 
Habitat: Natal: Inanda, 1,800 feet alt., June, Wood, No. 569; near 
Umzinyati, Mrs. Edwards ; near Durban, August, Wood, No. 9007. 
Drawn and descril^ed from Wood's 9007. 
The genus Laggera contains 10 species only, of which 3, including the one 
here described, are common to Tropical Asia and Tropical and South Africa; 4 
are confined to Tropical Africa, 1 to Tropical Asia, and 2 to Abyssinia. The genus 
is nearly related to Blumea, but the anthers are not tailed, while in Blumea they 
are so. None of the species have any economic value, and most of them are mere 
weeds. This plant differs much in size, according to the situation in which it is 
grown ; in open ground it is rarely more than 2 feet in height, and somewhat 
robust in habit, while in good soil and slight shade it sometimes reaches to 6 feet 
or even more, and its branches are slender and elongated. 
Fig. 1, leaf and portion of stem ; 2, branch of inflorescence; 3, flower head ; 
4, inner involucral scale ; 5, outer involucral scale ; 6, ray floret ; 7, disk floret ; 
8, lobe of corolla of disk floret ; 9, stamen ; 10, stigmas of disk floret ; 11, acliene ; 
12, portions of pappus bristle, highly magnified; except Figs. 1 and 2 all enlarged. 
