GARDENIA GLOBOSA.

Cape Province, Natal.

Rubiaceae. Tribe Gardenieae.

Gardenia, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 89.

This handsome plant is a shrub or sometimes becomes a small tree, and is without doubt one of our finest native flowering shrubs. It is common in Natal, where it flowers in early spring and summer. The large fragrant bell-shaped flowers are produced in great profusion and give to the plant a very striking appearance. The species has been known to European cultivation for over sixty years, but is usually grown in the greenhouse. It is frequently seen in gardens in Durban, Natal, and specimens have been grown in Queens Park, East London, but the plant has not received the attention from South African horticulturists which it deserves.

Our illustration was made from specimens collected by Miss K. A. Lansdell in the Stella bush near Durban, Natal. The native name is “Isi-Qoba.”

Description:—A shrub or small tree. Branches with dark-coloured bark, glabrous. Leaves opposite; petioles 3-5 mm. long; blade 5-15 cm. long, 2-3·5 cm. broad, lanceolate or sometimes oblanceolate, obtuse or acute, gradually tapering to the base, entire, with a prominent reddish mid-rib beneath, glabrous; stipules about one-third of the length of the petiole, ovate, acuminate, minutely pubescent, soon deciduous. Flowers terminal, axillary or clustered. Pedicels 1-2 mm. long, minutely pubescent. Calyx 3-4 mm. long, minutely pubescent and glandular without, silky within; tube campanulate; lobes acute. Corolla white, usually with 5 faint pink lines within, which may become darker near the base and broader on the lobes, sometimes spotted; tube 2-5 cm. long, 1-8 cm. in diameter above, campanulate, suddenly constricted and narrowed above the calyx, minutely pubescent without, densely tomentose within; lobes spreading, half as long as the tube. Anthers linear. Ovary 1-celled, with numerous ovules; stigmas white or pink. Fruit a brown berry, crowned with the persistent calyx-lobes, many seeded. Seeds minute, immersed in the fleshy parietal placentas.