  RICHARDIA ANGUSTILOBA. Transvaal, Basutoland. Aroideae. Tribe Philodendreae. Richardia, Kunth.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 982. Richardia angustiloba, Schott in Journ. Bot. 1865, 35; Fl. Cap. vii. 37. The specimen figured was first mentioned in the Gardener’s Chronicle, 1892, as Calla Pentlandii, and two years later in the same publication was again brought to notice as Richardia Pentlandii, under which name it was described and figured in the Botanical Magazine. Mr. N. E. Brown, who monographed the genus for the Flora Capensis, considers it the same as Richardia angustiloba which was described as early as 1865. It was introduced into cultivation by Mr. R. Whyte, Pentland House, Lee, who raised flowers in 1892, and exhibited it at a meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society and was awarded a first-class certificate. Specimens of the tubers were taken to Kew by Mr. E. E. Galpin in May, 1892. Our present illustration was made from plants flowered by Mr. H. H. Wickens, Officer in Charge of the Union Buildings Garden, Pretoria. Description:—Leaves dark green, unspotted; petiole 30-60 cm. long, terete, glabrous; lamina 22-30 cm. long, 11 cm. broad at the widest part, ovate, acute, and produced into a filiform appendage at the apex 1·2 cm. long, sagittate at the base, glabrous, with the midrib prominent beneath and channelled above. Peduncle over 1 metre high, longer than the leaves, terete, glabrous. Spathe gamboge-yellow, dark purple at the base inside, 10-14 cm. long, 4-4·5 cm. broad across the middle, 7-10 cm. across the mouth, loosely convolute for two-thirds of its length, then expanding into a broad, nearly horizontal limb produced into a subulate tip 1·5 cm. long and with recurved margins. Spadix yellow, 4·5 cm. long, Plate 10.—Fig. 1, plant much reduced; Fig. 2, spathe removed to show the spadix. F.P.S.A., 1920. [Image unavailable.] 11. K. A. Lansdell del. FREESIA REFRACTA, KLATT. |
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