FREESIA Sparrmannii var. FLAVA.

Cape Province.

Iridaceae. Tribe Ixieae.

Freesia, Klatt; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. iii. p. 704.

Freesia Sparrmannii, N.E. Br. var. flava, N.E. Br.

Gladiolus Sparrmanni, Thunb. in Kongl. Vet. Acad. Handlingar, 1814, p. 189, t. 9A, and Fl. Cap. ed Schultes, p. 49.

According to the Flora Capensis the only species in the genus Freesia is F. refracta, Klatt, which is a native of the eastern districts of Albany, Bathurst, etc., and is characterised by having (among other characters) the slender lower part of the perianth-tube shorter than the upper broader part and not more than twice as long as the bracts. But there are at least three other species found in other regions that distinctly differ in habit or in the tube of the flower or in both. One of them collected by Burchell in Bechuanaland and at present undescribed, has a very long tube. Another is a plant found in the coast districts of Swellendam, Riversdale, Ladismith, etc., figured and described by Thunberg under the name of Gladiolus Sparrmanni, upon which I found the species Freesia Sparrmannii. The reference to this figure is omitted by Schultes in his edition of Thunberg’s Fl. Cap., and is not quoted by Baker, but it accurately agrees with the plant Zeyher collected along the Buffeljagts River in Swellendam Division and distributed under No. 4027. It conspicuously differs from F. refracta by the very much longer slender part to the perianth tube, and although Thunberg’s plant and that collected by Zeyher have purplish-tinted flowers, I place the plant here figured as a yellow variety of it, because I find that the late P. MacOwan, in a letter preserved at Kew, gives the following particulars concerning this species, which he also considers distinct from F. refracta. He writes: “All along the coast from Cape Point towards Agulhas, notably near Mossel Bay, the other Freesia grows wild. I have never seen it in my Eastern Province peregrinations.... Its colour varies very much, from pale golden daffodil tint to pure white, and is either with or without purplish stains on the outside of the perianth-segments. Here, at the Hort. C.B.S., we paid much attention to this lovely bulb, grew it year after year, roguing out all the yellow and purple-stained individuals and sowing the whitest. This is the ‘Freesia refracta alba’ of gardens.”

This note gives the origin of F. refracta var. alba, Baker, Handb. Irid. p. 167, which should now be called F. Sparrmannii var. alba, for it certainly is not the same as the true F. refracta, and Thunberg’s original name must be upheld.

The plant here figured is doubtless the pale golden form mentioned by MacOwan, and it differs from the yellow-flowered F. xanthospila by the very long slender part of its perianth-tube.—N. E. Brown.

Our illustration was made from specimens grown in the Gardens of the Division of Botany from bulbs presented by Mr. J. Shand, of Ladismith, Cape Province.

Description:—Corm about 4 cm. long, 3 cm. in diameter, produced into a short neck and densely covered with fibres. Leaves basal, 6-8 cm. long, ·5-1 cm. broad, acute, somewhat sheathing at the base, glabrous. Peduncle 9·5 cm. long, with the upper portion bent at a right angle. Spathe-valves 1 cm. long, ovate, subacuminate, acute, membranous in the upper portion. Perianth-tube 5·2 cm. long, 1·2 cm. in diameter above, campanulate in the upper portion and becoming slenderly tubular in the lower half, yellow; lobes 1·2 cm. long, 1 cm. broad, ovate-oblong, or subrotund, rounded above, yellow. Style 5-6 cm. long, filiform, 6-lobed; lobes 5 mm. long, linear, somewhat spathulate at the apex.—E. Percy Phillips.

Plate 11.—Fig. 1, anther; Fig. 2, style arms.

F.P.S.A., 1921.