MESEMBR YANTHEMUM 
I5 1 
subinferior, with 2 — 00 carpels, syncarpous. Style absent. Stigmas as many as the carpels. Fruit 
usually a capsule, with thick and succulent walls, with 1 — 00 loculi, opening at the apex. Seeds few 
or 00 . Placentation basal, central, axile, or parietal. Embryo lying on the outside of the endosperm, 
curved or even spiral. Endosperm mealy. 
About 18 genera and 420 species; chiefly in South Africa, but also in the Mediterranean region, 
tropical Africa, tropical Asia, California, South America, and Australia. 
Only genus represented in the British flora : — * Mesembryanthemum. 
Genus 1. # Mesembryanthemum 
Mesembryanthemum [Dillenius Hort. Eltham. 225 (1732)] L. Sp. PI. 480 (1753) et Gen. PI. ed. 5, 215 
(1754); Pax in Engler und Prantl Pfianze 7 ifam. iii, pt. ib, 45 (1889); Harvey and Sonder FI. Capens. ii, 387 
(1861 — 2). 
Succulent undershrubs or herbs. Leaves usually opposite, succulent. Inflorescence cymose or 
solitary and terminal. Perianth monochlamydeous, more or less adherent to the ovary ; segments 
2 — 8, usually 5, unequal. Staminodes numerous, petaloid, ligulate, united at the base, in 1 — 00 
whorls. Stamens numerous, united at the base, in many whorls. Ovary 4 — 20, subinferior or 
inferior. Placentation parietal. Frtiit a capsule, opening at the summit, and only in moist air. Seeds 
numerous. 
About 350 species, nearly all South African, but a few others in South America, Australia, and 
California, southern Europe and northern Africa. 
I. ^MESEMBRYANTHEMUM EDULE. Hottentot’s Fig. Plate 153 
M. falcaUan majus flore amplo luteo Dillenius Hort. Elthatn. 283, t. 212, fig. 212 (1732) [=var . edule\ 
Mesembryanthemum edule L. [Syst. Nat. 1060 (1759)] Sp. PI. ed. 2, 695 (1762); Haworth Observ. 
Misc. 392 (1794); Harvey and Sonder Ft. Capensis ii, 412 (1861 — 2) emend.; \M. acinaciforme var. flavum L. 
Sp. PI. 485 (1753)] M. eqiiilaterum. Haworth Observ. Mesembr. 390 (1794); M. virescens Haworth Syn. PI. Suec. 
236 (1802); M. aequilaterale Haworth Misc. Nat. 77 (1803); Bentham and Mueller FI. Austral. 324 (1866); 
Reiche FI. Chili ii, 367 (1898). 
leones : — Camb. Brit. Ft. ii. Plate ijj. (a) Flowering shoot, (b) Flower. ( c ) Cross-section of leaf. 
(d) Cross-section of fruit. ( e ) Vertical section of fruit. (/) Cross-section of portion of fruit (enlarged). 
(g) Upper surface of fruit, with stigmas. (h) Staminodes and stamens. (i) Stamens (enlarged). Cornwall 
(C. C. V.). 
Perennial. Stem robust, decumbent, 2-ridged, compressed. Leaves acinaciform, subconnate, 
thick and succulent, triangular in outline, outer ridge more or less serratulate, up to about io'ocm. 
long and i’2 5 broad and deep but often rather smaller. Bracteoles (or uppermost pair of leaves) 
leaf-like, not cup-like, rather longer than the combined length of the pedicel and ovary. Pedicels 
very stout. Flowers about 4 — 7 cm. in diameter ; May to September. Perianth comparatively in- 
conspicuous, green, with 5 unequal segments, the largest segment up to about 3 — 4 cm. long. 
Staminodes reddish-purple or sulphur-yellow in colour. Stamens of the same colour. Anthers 
versatile. Ovary with about 6 — 10 carpels and as many loculi and stigmas. Capsule large, edible. 
The forms which are naturalised in this country may be placed under three varieties : — (a) *M. edule var. flavum nobis 
(=M. edule L. l.c., in sensu stricto) — sta?ninodes large, yellow; carpels about 10. ib) *M. edule var. virescens nobis (= M. 
virescens Haworth, l.c., in sensu stricto) — staminodes large, purple; carpels about 8. (c) * M. edule var. equilaterum (= M. equi- 
laterum Haworth, l.c. ; M. aequilaterale Haworth, l.c. ; in sensu stricto) — staminodes smaller, purple; carpels about 6. 
The allied M. acinaciforme (L. Sp. PI. ed. 2, 695 (1762)) has shorter and cup-like bracts which are about half as long 
as the pedicel and ovary combined, staminodes of a deep purple, and usually more numerous (12 — 13) stigmas. See 
Dillenius Hort. Eltham. 282, t. 211, fig. 270 (1732), as M. acinaciforme flore amplissimo purpureo ; and Curtis Bot. Mag. 
t. 5539, as M. acinaciforme ; and cf. Bot. Reg. t. 1732, as M. rubrocinctum. M. acinaciforme is naturalised in the 
Mediterranean region ; but we have no evidence that it is so in England or the Channel Isles. 
Cultivated in gardens, and now naturalised near the sea on cliffs, rocks, old walls, and hedgebanks in the 
Channel Isles, Cornwall (including the Scilly Isles), and in the Isle of Wight. “ Nowhere naturalised in Ireland, 
though it grows well in wild places ” (R. LI. Praeger in litt.). 
Mediterranean region (naturalised); South Africa, South America, Australia, Tasmania, California (perhaps not 
indigenous). 
