STAPELIA GETTLEFFII.

Transvaal.

Asclepiadaceae. Tribe Stapelieae.

Stapelia, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 784.

Stapelia Gettleffii, Pott in Ann. Transvaal Mus. vol. iii. p. 226, t. 13 (1913).

Lovers of our South African succulents will welcome this plate of a new Transvaal Stapelia, discovered by Mr. G. F. Gettleffi at Louis Trichardt in the Zoutpansberg District. It is closely allied to Stapelia hirsuta, which occurs in the Western Province of the Cape, but the flowers are larger, the cilia longer, and the rudimentary leaves are more developed. The illustration given here was made from specimens growing on the rockeries of the Division of Botany, Pretoria, but there is no record of the locality from which the original plants came. In 1916 a coloured illustration of the species appeared in the Botanical Magazine (t. 8681), made from a specimen which flowered in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in June 1915, which was sent to England by Mr. N. S. Pillans. Mr. Pillans’ specimens came from Palapye Road, near Mafeking.

Description:—A succulent herb 10-20 cm. high. Stems decumbent, 4-angled, velvety-pubescent. Leaves rudimentary, ·3-1·3 cm. long, linear-lanceolate, acute, velvety-pubescent. Flowers 1-3 together near the base of the stem; pedicels velvety. Sepals velvety. Corolla 8·5-15 cm. in diameter; disc purple, clothed with long soft hairs; lobes barred with transverse yellow and purple lines, and ciliate with long whitish and purple hairs, velvety on the back. Outer corona-lobes 7 mm. long, lanceolate with a subulate-acuminate recurved dark purple tip; inner corona-lobes ·9-1·3 cm. long, subulate, with a 1-3-toothed broad dorsal wing.

[As received from South Africa and as grown in England the stems of all the plants seen are erect, being decumbent only at the basal part as in other species of this genus. I have never seen them entirely prostrate as here represented. Locality may cause the difference.—N. E. Brown.]